


And Saints

by LadyKatie512



Series: And Saints Universe [1]
Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: A wild ex girlfriend appears, Age Difference, American English, Author has no conception of time, Back Burner Slow Burn, Canon Compliant, Domingo is Soft, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Shenanigans, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Español | Spanish, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Drama, Gun Violence, Nacho is Sad, Nacho is in love, No Better Call Saul Season 4 Spoilers, No Better Call Saul Season 5 Spoilers, OC is Gullible, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Original Character, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Parties, Pining, Protective!Nacho, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Teenage Drama, Texting, Tuco is Insane, Underage Drinking, all the drama, shotgun kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2020-06-27 21:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 195,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19797700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKatie512/pseuds/LadyKatie512
Summary: Diana Martin, or Jade, as she calls herself, is stuck in a perpetual limbo between adolescence and adulthood. She still lives with her parents, and her only goals in life seem to be getting high, hanging out with her friends, and going to parties. With a sudden case of bad luck, this all changes when she's in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she gets swept up in the dealings of Albuquerque's local gangsters and the Juárez Cartel.For July, this will be updated once every weekend.





	1. Teen Idle

**Author's Note:**

> Story Title Credit to Sleigh Bell's song "And Saints".
> 
> I'm also in the middle of scene edits for the previously posted chapters, that's why the word count is jumping up if you were wondering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Marina's song "Teen Idle".
> 
> This first chapter is about 14.5 novel pages and, according to Grammarly, will take about 25 minutes to read.
> 
> This chapter (this whole first act really) takes place after Season One of Better Call Saul, this is your warning for any potential spoilers. As the story progresses, I'll let you know about any further spoiler warnings. I'll also post any content warnings per each chapter in the notes preceding each chapter. For example, this first scene has a mild vomit warning. It's not too gross but it's still there.
> 
> One last thing, any Spanish used in the chapters will be translated in the notes after the chapter.
> 
> *Edited on 05/03/2020: Minor content edits only, there shouldn't be a need to reread.*

“How long do you think he’ll be gone?” Corey asked while lying beside his girlfriend, Jade. They were both on a blanket laid flat atop one of the buildings of a defunct, old power plant, between two of the cooling towers. She rolled her eyes, looking away from the stars over north-central New Mexico as she turned her head to face him.

“Probably like two seconds. Don’t try anything,” Jade answered, already trying not to smile at him. She had failed and resorted to sitting up and using the bottleneck of her forty to cover her mouth, drinking some of the cheap, warm beer within.

“Aww,” Corey pouted, rolling over on the blanket to face her. His hand was snaking under her shirt, and the sensation made her nearly choke.

“Don’t, that tickles,” she complained, grabbing at his hand under her shirt.

“Maybe he’ll get lost,” Corey mused before he sat up himself. He started trying to kiss Jade’s neck, but she dodged him.

“We’re at the only place for miles outside Albuquerque with working electricity,” Jade continued to dodge Corey. “Just how far do you think he’s walking to take a piss?”

“But we’ll be quick,” he pressed on, and Jade laughed again as his hand moved across her stomach.

“Aren’t you always quick?” she joked. Corey was fast to withdraw, a fake expression of hurt washing over his face.

“That was low,” he stated. Jade continued to laugh, forcing Corey to laugh as well.

“If you wanted that, we should have come out here alone,” Jade set her forty down as Cory gave up. He laid back down on the blanket next to Jade, defeated. Meanwhile, her blue eyes scanned the darkness around them. She was unable to find their friend, Joel, in the surrounding desert. She figured that he had probably wandered off behind one of the buildings to keep out of view.

“Everyone else ditched us. You think he would’ve ditched us too,” Corey stated, taking a slow drag from the spliff he had set down earlier. Watching him, Jade moved onto her hands and knees and straddled his waist.

“Joel’s your best friend; he wouldn’t ditch you. Besides, if Taylor and Lena came tonight, would we have more or less pot?” she asked, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ears. After, she snatched the spliff from Corey’s hand and took a drag for herself. Holding it in her lungs, Jade frowned at the taste before handing it back to her boyfriend.

“Probably more. Wouldn’t have to split it between two cigarettes,” Corey accepted it back with his right hand, his left settling on her hip.

“So gross,” she coughed the smoke out of her lungs after a few seconds, waving it away from her face. “Tobacco’s so shitty,” she admitted, and Corey laughed at her.

“We’ll make Taylor and Lena make it up to us for bailing.”

“Oh, we’ll make them make it up to us? They wouldn’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts?” Jade rose an eyebrow with her sarcasm. Teasingly, she pressed down on Corey’s waist with her ass.

“When do they ever do anything ‘out of the kindness of their hearts’?” Corey laughed at her. He was speaking with the spliff between his lips so he could have both of his hands on Jade’s thighs over her jeans. “They’re so stingy with anything they have.”

“Not always,” Jade thought on it, but couldn’t actually remember a time when Lena or Taylor shared anything they had that was bought with their own money. Then again, sharing was expensive. “Okay, maybe always, but—” Jade stopped herself, hearing the familiar sound of tires driving over gravel.

Corey had heard it as well, judging solely by the suddenly confused expression he had. “Is Joel bailing?” he asked, and Jade quickly got off him so he could get up from the blanket they were both on.

“Why would he bail? Maybe he’s going to that gas station?” Jade suggested, pulling out her cell phone to see if he had tried texting or calling her. So much for Joel being Corey’s best friend and not ditching him. Flipping open her phone, Jade saw that she had no new texts or missed calls. She realized then just how stranded they would be if Joel up and left them. Who would actually take the time to come and get them this far out of Albuquerque? Corey’s mom? Her parents? Neither option seemed very appealing, especially with how late it was getting.

“Shit!” Corey hissed, pulling Jade’s attention back to him. She watched as he suddenly and nearly fell over trying to lay back down on the roof.

“What?” Jade flipped her phone shut with a snap, wondering what had him suddenly afraid.

“Cops!” he whispered to her, and Jade’s stomach sank.

“No,” she adopted the same whisper he had, shoving her phone back into her pocket. “Why? Why’s there cops here?” It didn’t make sense, the place was abandoned, and they weren’t being loud or drawing attention to themselves. There was nobody to call the cops on them. Nobody could even see Joel’s parent’s car from the access road the way they had parked it.

Jade crawled closer to the ledge of the roof then, towards Corey. She stretched her neck up to verify that there were, indeed, cops down below.

“What are you doing?” Corey asked her, grabbing onto her arm and trying to pull her back. Jade persisted until she could see two men getting out of what was definitely not a cop car. They didn’t even look like cops. One was an old man, and the other was a striking example of what happened to science geeks in high school after two decades.

“They aren’t cops,” Jade backed up, crouching down next to Corey. “They are the farthest thing from cops. They’re in a minivan for Christ’s sake,” Jade whispered to Corey, who immediately looked relieved.

“Do we know them? What’s Joel doing?”

“They’re old, I dunno?” Jade shrugged. “And I didn’t see Joel. Text him?” she suggested, and Corey nodded before pulling out his own phone.

Below on the ground, Jade could make out the two men speaking to each other but couldn’t quite catch what they were saying. “Wait,” she stopped Corey, “What are they saying?”

“I can’t hear,” Corey answered her after a moment, and Jade tried poking her head up high enough to see them, but only saw the minivan they had arrived in.

“I can’t see them anymore…” Jade lowered herself back down and looked to Corey again. She realized that he still had the spliff lit and stuck in his mouth. There wasn’t much of a breeze, and Jade didn’t want to take any chances. She reached for it, plucking it from his mouth, before snuffing it out on the rooftop.

“Did more people just show up?” Corey asked. Simultaneously, Jade could hear a second vehicle pulling up, this one had a loud engine. Jade rose her head up again, watching the headlights of an older work van as it pulled into the empty lot, facing the parked minivan.

“Shit,” Jade ducked down quickly before looking to Corey, “Find out where the hell Joel is.”

Corey quickly started texting his best friend while Jade waited by his side.

“That your car, old man?” Jade could barely hear one of the newcomers ask, punctuated by two doors slamming shut.

“No,” she heard another man answer, “but the hood’s still warm.”

“What does that mean?” Corey asked Jade, and she sighed.

“They know someone else is here,” she answered quietly. Jade took it upon herself to move to the other side of the building, looking for Joel. She still couldn’t spot him in the darkness surrounding the abandoned power plant and looked back to Corey. Jade opened her mouth, ready to ask if Joel had responded when his phone started loudly ringing.

“Fuck,” he cursed, fumbling with his phone to try and turn the ringer off, “Fuck!”

“Battery!” Jade told him quickly, pointing at his phone. “The battery!” By the time Corey had his phone’s battery in his hands, the damage had already been done. Whoever was in the lot below the building knew Corey and Jade were up there.

“Alright, you can come out now,” Jade flinched at how loud the old man’s voice got, his sentence punctuated by another car door slamming. Corey looked to Jade, his phone still in one hand and the battery in the other. She shook her head, staying silent. The rest of the power plant was just as quiet afterward in the tense moment.

Suddenly, a commotion was heard below Corey and Jade. She rushed back to the opposite edge of the roof next to her boyfriend. Together, they finally spotted Joel, who must have decided to trust these strange men when Jade and Corey did not. The science nerd was missing from the group, but the old man was standing next to the minivan. His arms were crossed, watching while one of the two younger men (who had arrived in the work van) kicked the back of Joel’s knee, forcing him to the ground.

“Wait!” Jade shouted quickly, her brain turning off when she realized that Joel was in trouble. “We were just— We’re leaving now! Wait!” She took the steps down from the roof two at a time to get to the lot quicker, hoping to somehow convince everyone that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Never had she, Corey, or any of her other friends come out to the abandoned power plant and run into other people, especially shady men like now.

“We didn’t know other people came here,” she added as she reached the ground, taking a brief second to glance back up the old stairwell to make sure Corey was following her. Luckily, he was. When she looked back to the men, the two that had arrived in the old work van, and the old man who had come in the minivan, Jade realized that Joel was being held at gunpoint.

“Whoa! Oh shit, wait—!” her mind slammed into a brick wall while she physically skid to a stop with the heels of her Adidas digging into the earth. Jade had horribly underestimated how dangerous the situation was.

“Where are you going?” one of the younger men asked and, where Jade had stopped with her hands outstretched in a calming gesture, she saw that Corey had decided to just run. For a terrifying moment, she thought that he would get shot at, until the men quickly caught Corey by his shirt and pulled him back, forcing him to fall hard to the ground.

“Look— there’s— this isn’t—” Jade tried to calm the situation down, afraid to move from her spot. She realized that her hands were shaking horribly and she looked from the man who had grabbed her boyfriend, to the second man and Joel, who was still on his knees, his hands held up and shaking like Jade’s. She glanced at the old man then, who was still standing with his arms crossed by the minivan, looking utterly disappointed in the situation. The science nerd she found in the driver’s seat of the minivan, trying to hide in shadows behind the windshield.

“Shut up, get next to him,” the man who had caught Corey told her. For a terrifying moment, Jade couldn’t lift her feet.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, looking to the ground and watching her feet shuffle over the gravel. Shortly after, she was forced to kneel next to Joel, feeling the rocks sinking into the exposed skin of her knees through her ripped jeans. Corey was tossed to the ground on her other side, but at this point, he had given up on trying to flee. Jade kept her arms up and her hands away from her person, afraid that any kind of movement beside her trembling would make one of the gunmen jumpy.

“Who are they? Huh?” the one who had pushed Corey over asked, his gun still trained on him. Jade wanted to look over at her boyfriend but felt like it was best to keep her eyes on the gravel of the old lot.

“I don’t know. Thought they were with you,” the old man answered him, dropping his hands with a sigh and sticking them in his jacket’s pockets.

“We—We—” Jade tried before the other bearded gunman stopped her.

“¡Cállate!” he told her, and she immediately snapped her mouth shut.

“You don’t wanna know who they are?” the old man asked him. Instead of answering, the man holding Corey at gunpoint shoved him forward and pulled Corey’s wallet out of his back pocket. For a moment, she thought they might get robbed, but the man quickly tossed the contents, including the few dollars Corey had, onto the dirt. She didn’t dare look up to him to see why or what he was doing.

“What are you doing here?” the old man asked, but Jade nor her boyfriend or Joel, who had stayed silent since coming out of hiding, answered him.

“Were you told about this? Are you with another crew?” Joel’s gunman asked in English, and Jade heard one of the gun’s cock. She wasn’t sure which gun it was, the one held on Joel or Corey, but it made her eyes squeeze shut none the less. Jade had to fight with herself not to break down in tears. If she did, they were as good as dead.

“We were just hanging out—” she started, trying to quickly explain what they were doing at the power plant in a quick breath before she heard a retch. Her eyes snapped open in time to see Joel vomit down the front of his shirt.

“Oh, God,” she allowed herself to hold her hands over her eyes, facing forward again while trying not to hear him throw up the fast-food they had for dinner a few hours ago.

“Qué pinche asco,” his gunman complained in Spanish.

“You were what?” the old man questioned, ignoring Joel much better than Jade herself could. She still had her eyes closed, but behind the gagging from Joel, she heard him walking over the gravel, stopping just before her on her knees. “Look at me,” the man said as he stood in front of Jade, but she kept her eyes shut tight.

“L—look, we don’t know any of you. We didn’t see any of your vehicles, we don’t know your faces or your voices—” Jade tried explaining, letting her hands fall from her face, but her eyes were still closed. Somehow not seeing the threat in front of her made her feel less afraid, almost like she was an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

“I said, look at me, kid,” the man sighed, sounding exactly like a tired, grumpy, old man. Cautiously, Jade listened to him and opened her eyes, seeing the exact face of a tired, grumpy, old man.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her, and Jade barely recognized his tone as that of a disapproving parent.

He waited for her to respond, and, with her hands still in the air, she blurted out a fast, messy answer. “We were smoking pot and drinking beer. We’re teenagers—we’re nineteen, we don’t have anywhere else to do this. We didn’t know anyone else came here.”

“Smoking pot and drinking beer,” he repeated her before looking off to the man holding his gun on Corey. “That explains it.” He didn’t respond to the older man, and Jade felt a swell of hope fill her. “They’re here by mistake, not for you.”

“You’re just going to let them go?” Jade’s hope was quickly smashed, and she glanced at the man’s crocodile leather boots next to Corey.

“Are you really gonna risk scaring off your deal?” the older man asked him, lowering his voice. “You think any of these kids are going to talk? They’re scared. That one’s already puked.”

Jade waited for a response from the other, younger man, and could feel her heart jump into her throat when she saw him move, walking from Corey to her. She held her breath, waiting to feel the barrel of his gun against her head like he had it against her boyfriend’s. Instead, he crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet with his arms resting on either knee. He still held his gun loosely in his right hand, the barrel pointed at the ground.

“Look at me,” he told her quietly, and Jade quickly obeyed him, her blue eyes moving from the gun in his hands to his face. She tried not to, hoping she could look at him without seeing him, but Jade couldn’t imagine ever forgetting his face. Scarred eyebrow, dark and intense eyes, shaved head, snake earing. His details, everything, flooded her memory, but Jade was too afraid to look away from him.

“You saw nothing,” he told her, speaking slowly to make sure she would understand. “You weren’t even here. Understand?” he didn’t sound threatening or angry, he seemed calm, but it still frightened Jade. She nodded in understanding, ready to forget the night ever existed. “Don’t make me come find you. Get out of here,” he nodded, and Jade barely understood what that meant before her arms dropped.

“Get up,” she said quickly. Jade nearly losing her balance as she scrambled off the ground, pulling on Corey, who understood that they were being let go as well. “Get up!” she nearly yelled at him as he scrambled to pick up the contents of his wallet that had been scattered. She looked to Joel then, about ready to run to the car by herself, and saw that he was still on his knees with his hands held up.

“Joel, get up!” she yelled at him, tugging hard enough on his arm to knock the heavier teenager over. “Move!” she pulled him up to his feet. Joel struggled to his feet, finally snapping out of his fear-induced stupor. At the same time, Jade looked for Corey. She found him already running for their car, leaving them behind. She was thankful that it was Joel’s parents’ old Ford Taurus, and not Corey’s mom’s beat-up Fiesta. If it was, the way he was acting looked like he was ready to leave them behind.

While rushing Joel along, she reached into his pockets and found the keys, using the fob to unlock the doors for Corey before he set the alarm off. He quickly jumped into the passenger seat before yelling at them to hurry, and Jade ushered Joel to the back before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Go, go, drive, drive, drive!” Corey was smacking the dashboard of the Ford as Jade started it up, and she was too scared to try and yell at him to calm down. Her own heart was trying to escape her ribcage, and she nearly spun the car out as she drove off on the soft gravel, heading for the old access road for the power plant. Jade didn’t even have the door closed or her seatbelt on until they were on that access road.

“Why are you slowing down? Jade!”

“I can’t speed on the highway,” she replied, not bothering to look away from the road as they came up to I-40. “We’ve been smoking and drinking, I’m not going to jail if we get pulled over,” she added. Jade made sure to fully brake and turn her blinker on before pulling onto the highway, despite cars being scarce this far out from Albuquerque.

“We forgot our beer and cigs,” Joel stated from the back seat, and Jade looked to the rearview mirror, adjusting it to her height since Joel had been the last one to drive.

“Are they following us? Is anyone coming after us?” Corey asked, turning around in his seat to verify for himself.

“Just sit down and chill out. We’re free, we’re okay,” Jade told him, trying to calm herself down as well, but she couldn’t stop herself from shaking or loosen her tight grip on the steering wheel.

“You can’t go faster?” Corey asked her, and Jade glanced down to the speedometer. She was already ten over the speed limit but also realized that the gas light was on.

“We’re low on gas,” she stated instead of answering her boyfriend.

“We were supposed to get gas and snacks on our way into town,” Joel stated, still sounding monotone.

“We can’t make it to town?” Corey asked, and Jade shook her head.

“We’re on E, babe. We gotta go to that one gas station, or else we’ll break down,” Jade told him, already spotting the gas station on the horizon in front of the glow of Albuquerque.

When they finally neared the gas station, Jade was half afraid that they’d have to push the older Taurus to the pumps. She was, thankfully, able to pull to the closest pump and quickly cut the engine. The three teenagers sat in silence for a moment after, the first sound for a long moment being Jade’s sigh.

“I can’t believe we forgot my dad’s pot on the roof of the power plant,” Joel stated, still monotone, and Jade looked back to him, first looking to his face and then to his vomit soaked shirt.

“Joel, go inside and clean up. I’ll buy us gas,” Jade told him, ignoring what he had said. They technically left everything on the roof, the beer, the pot, the cigarettes, and the blanket. It’s not like they could turn around and go back. She was just thankful they all still had their phones and wallets, let alone their lives.

Joel silently got out of the car, and stiffly walked into the convenience store. Jade watched him before getting out herself, pulling her debit card out of her wallet. Hopefully, her mother wouldn’t look too far into a fifteen dollar charge for a gas station outside the city limits on I-40.

“Jade?” she heard Corey ask as he rolled down the window while she walked around the car to the gas pump.

“Huh?” she asked, realizing her hands were still shaking as she tried pulling out her debit card from her wallet.

“What if they catch up to us?”

She looked to him after finally getting her card out of her wallet. “They weren’t chasing us. That guy told us to leave,” she explained before sticking her card into the machine and entering her pin.

“That guy didn’t want us to leave,” Corey stressed, his head and shoulders sticking out of the passenger window now as Jade moved to grab the gas nozzle.

“Corey,” she said, punctuating his name by jamming the nozzle into the car. “If he didn’t want us to leave, we wouldn’t have left. He’s not gonna change his mind now and come after us,” she told him, hoping he’d drop the subject. Jade, herself, was already trying to forget everything that had happened that night, but that gangster’s face was burned into the back of her mind.

“You really think he’s going to just let this go?” Corey kept up his paranoia, and Jade pressed the base of her palms into her eyes.

“Yes, Corey, I do,” she dropped her hands from her eyes. After, Jade turned to check the pump and realized she had overshot the fifteen dollar cap that she had mentally given herself by several dollars. She had probably gotten close to completely filling the Taurus’ tank up. “Shit,” she sighed and quickly stopped the pump, hoping her mother wouldn’t question her at all.

“But, I dunno they were just about ready to shoot us and all of a sudden—”

“Corey,” Jade stopped him quickly, her voice rising slightly. “Stop it, okay? Just stop. It’s over, we’re alive. That’s all I care about.”

Corey looked at Jade like she was crazy before finally sighing and sitting back in the passenger seat of Joel’s parent’s car. Jade then capped the gas tank of the vehicle and placed the nozzle back in its holder before getting back into the driver seat, sitting in silence with her boyfriend as he nervously ran his hands through his dark hair.

A few minutes passed before Joel came back out of the convenience store. He was left shirtless, with his waist and slight gut hanging over the waistband of his jeans. His tee-shirt was freshly rinsed and soaking wet, bunched up in his left hand. Jade waited for him to get into the backseat before starting the car up again.

The three of them were silent for a moment, Jade wondering if Corey or Joel would say anything before she spoke up. “I’m gonna drive myself home. Are one of you okay to drive back to the apartments after?”

“I can, yeah,” Joel agreed after a second, and Jade looked to him in the back and then to Corey, who was still silent. Jade figured he was upset with her, and she decided not to press it.

“Thanks, Joel,” she answered him and drove away from the gas station towards her home.

~-----~

From: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
that guy is stalking me

Jade had flipped her phone open to read the text and rolled her blue eyes, quickly flipping it closed. After, she returned to watching whatever cartoon her sister Elle had on the living room television. Their father was flipping through the previous days’ newspaper, and their mother was in the kitchen making dinner (or, technically, breakfast for Jade). She could only guess at where her younger brother was, he hadn’t been home since she woke up that day around two in the afternoon.

In her hand, her phone went off two more times before Jade gave in, sighing and flipping her phone open to read the new texts.

“Could you sound any more annoyed?” her father looked up from the newspaper, and Jade met his eyes.

“Ugh,” she responded in jest, sounding as annoyed as possible, and her father gave her a quick nod.

“Much better. Thank you, Diana,” he used Jade’s real name, just to annoy her further, and turned back to his newspaper.

“Don’t provoke her, dad, she’s already been moping all day.”

“Shut up, Elle. You’ll do this in a few years when you’re a teenager. It’ll be your favorite thing to do,” Jade looked over to her little sister on the other side of the couch.

“What? Being pathetic?” Elle asked, not missing a beat. She didn’t even look away from the television. From the armchair, Jade heard her father stifle laughter with his hand.

“Dad!” she couldn’t help but smile as well, despite her nine-year-old sister calling her pathetic. “Don’t laugh at that!”

“I just,” he cleared his throat, taking a moment to think of a response. “I’m so proud of that comeback, I’m sorry,” he admitted, and Elle smiled at him.

“Thanks, dad.”

“You guys are awful,” Jade looked back to her phone, deciding to ignore them, and opened the next two texts from Corey.

From: <3Corey  
Text: 1/2  
i saw his van outside the apartments  
Text: 2/2  
JADE

To: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
theres 1000s of vans in abq

She flipped her phone closed, knowing what Corey was getting at, but they hadn’t had any trouble for the past three days. Why would those gangsters and dealers from the power plant wait three days to start harassing them? Jade doubted that they even knew where to find her, Joel, and Corey. She barely had time to turn back to the TV before Corey text her several more times.

From: <3Corey  
Text: 1/4  
no its his van  
Text:2/4  
the one who had a gun to my head  
Text: 3/4  
joel has seen it too its parked at our apartments  
Text: 4/4  
that guy wants to kill me

Jade decided that ignoring Corey and his paranoid texts might be a better course of action. She flipped her phone closed but almost as soon as she did, her phone went off again. With a sigh, she flipped open the screen, seeing a new text from Joel this time.

From: Joelbear  
Text: 1/1  
coreys right that guy has been parked outside for a couple nights

Jade rolled her eyes again at Joel’s text. She wanted to tell him that they were both overreacting and that someone new to their apartment complex probably had some shady looking van. Before she could, her mother called out from the kitchen.

“Dinner’s finished, guys!”

“‘Kay, mom!” Elle answered for the trio and quickly turned the television off. Just as quickly, Jade navigated to her texts and decided to respond to Corey over Joel.

To: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
i have dinner cant talk

“Here,” she sat up from lounging on the couch and handed her silenced and closed phone to her father.

“Thanks, honey,” he accepted it and dropped it into his breast pocket before they both stood and followed Elle into the dining room.

Their mother already had four plates set out on the table. She entered the dining room from the kitchen, carrying a dish of what looked like pulled pork and a new bag of hamburger buns. There was already a store-bought container of pre-made coleslaw on the table.

“I hope you guys don’t mind. Barely had the energy for this,” their mother said, setting the buns and dish down. As she did, Jade took a seat to her father’s left, and Elle sat in her usual seat one over from his right, leaving it open for their mother. That left one chair empty between her and Jade at the table, the one her brother Charlie typically took.

“Its fine, sweetheart. Not like we have a fully capable adult in the house that does nothing all day,” her father stated, and Jade couldn’t help but smile at his ridicule.

“Okay, I get it. I’ll totally cook dinner tomorrow. I think we have a new box of Cheerios in the cupboard,” Jade stated, already plopping a serving of the coleslaw onto her plate.

“Dad! If Jade cooks for us, we’ll die,” Elle piped up.

“Cheerios,” Jade reiterated, making herself a sandwich next.

“You’ll burn them,” Elle deadpanned, and Jade could hear her father trying to stifle more laughter.

“Did you hear that, mom? I’ll burn the cereal,” Jade told her before biting into the freshly made sandwich.

“I, well…” she started, unsure of how to respond. Jade knew she couldn’t cook anything that required something more complicated than boiling water or pressing buttons on a microwave, and she also knew how to take a joke.

“It’s okay, we already know she’s hopeless,” her father reassured her mother, and Jade laughed at him.

“Thank you, dad. You’re so motivational.”

“Speaking of motivation,” her mother started, “have you thought about starting college this coming semester?”

“That’s like, months away,” Jade looked down to her food, hoping to avoid the topic.

“I bet CNM is opening registration in the next couple of weeks,” her father stated. “I can drive you down and help you get enrolled.”

“Shouldn’t I have a job first? To pay for the ridiculous single-use textbooks and all that?” Jade tried dodging. It wasn’t like her parents hadn’t tried this before, she knew where they were going.

“Then we can go job hunting this weekend,” her father quickly countered.

“The economy is shit, no business is gonna hire a teenager with no work experience,” Jade answered before quickly stuffing her mouth with coleslaw.

“Then, maybe I can help you get approved for a student loan from my bank,” her mother suggested.

“And put me in crippling debt before I can even legally drink? No thanks mom,” Jade shook her head.

“Well, that’s where scholarships and grants would have come in handy, but we missed that boat,” her father started up again, and Jade gave up, dropping her fork to look at her little sister.

“Can’t you distract them? Tell them you found the cure for cancer or something,” she complained, and Elle, who had been quietly eating, looked from her to her parents, swallowing the food in her mouth.

“The zoo had a competition for naming their new Siberian tiger cub. The name our class chose won, so we get a field trip to the zoo now,” Elle explained quickly as if that were ordinary, mundane news.

“That’s fascinating. Really?” their father asked, “Is there something we have to sign?”

“I have a permission slip in my backpack. I’ll give it to you after dinner.”

“Well, congrats, honey. That’s good news. What name did your class choose?” their mother asked, leaving Jade alone to eat in peace.

“We named it Nadezhda, which is Russian for hope. That’s because it’s a Siberian tiger, and they live in Russia and are endangered.”

Jade almost couldn’t help but sigh and roll her eyes, unable to fade away that easily. “Nid—what?”

“Its better than whatever stupid name you would have chosen,” Elle snapped back at her.

“Nuh-uh. I’d name it Nigel after Nigel Thornberry because nature. Duh,” Jade answered quickly, trying not to laugh.

“The tiger cub is a female.”

“Fine. I’d name it Marianne after Marianne Thornberry because nature,” Jade corrected herself quickly, “Duh.”

“You’re so dumb,” Elle shook her head as if she were disappointed in her older sister.

“Not my fault mom and dad saved all the smart genes for you,” Jade teased her.

“That’s not how it works, you know that,” Elle responded quickly, and Jade mocked her, poorly imitating her sister’s voice.

“‘That’s not how it works’!”

“Really?” their mother asked as their father started laughing, and Jade looked to him.

“I’m sorry, that’s just—” he cleared his throat quickly to stop laughing at his daughter’s antics. “Sorry, sweetie. That’s inappropriate, and you both need to…” he had to stop and compose himself again with a deep breath before continuing. “You both need to stop.”

“Sorry, mom,” Elle responded first, and Jade followed.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, before biting into her half-eaten sandwich.

Dinner proceeded like a typical night. Jade’s parents fell into talking about their work at the bank and school, and Elle would butt in about her day at elementary school. Jade didn’t have much to add to the conversations since she usually stayed at home all day, or would go to one of her friends’ houses or typical hangout spots to drink or get high. It wasn’t exactly something she would want to bring up in conversation with her parents.

After dinner, Jade cleared the table by herself, packing away any leftovers in the fridge before quickly loading the dishwasher. She was very familiar with the usual post-dinner chores. After Jade finished clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, she went to her father for her payment. It took the form of her phone being returned to her.

“Thanks, dad,” she told him before flipping her phone open, checking the unread texts from Corey and Joel. She realized that Corey had also tried calling her, twice, despite her telling him she was at dinner. The messages were mostly the same, Corey and Joel trying to convince her that one of the gangsters from the power plant was stalking them.

Making her way to her bedroom, Jade didn’t even bother reading through all the texts. Instead, she just called Corey.

“Seriously, babe, what the hell?” he answered after only the first ring.

“What the hell yourself,” Jade asked him, closing her bedroom door behind her and collapsing back first onto her unmade bed. “I told you I was at dinner.”

“This is more important than a stupid dinner, Jade,” Corey stressed, but Jade was only half listening. She felt something hard underneath her back and fished it out from between herself and the mattress, finding that it was her teal Game Boy Color.

“What, you want me to tell my parents that I can’t eat dinner because you think that a gangster is stalking us?” Jade asked, stretching in her position to place the Game Boy on her nightstand next to her alarm clock.

“No, but you could have made something up to get out of dinner.”

“But I was hungry,” Jade pouted though he couldn’t see. The tone she used alone was most likely enough to convey that she was.

“Really?” Corey asked and sighed.

“Look, what’s going on with this van? Its probably just some new neighbor,” Jade told him since she didn’t call him just to get yelled at for eating dinner.

“It’s not. It’s only here at night, and it’s parked in different lots,” Corey argued. “Joel and I have both seen it. I haven’t seen another ugly van like that since before that night at the power plant.”

“Corey, seriously, you’re both being paranoid,” Jade told him flat out before readjusting the pillows under her head.

“If it was just me, sure. But we’re both seeing it. That’s not paranoia,” Corey argued.

“What about me? I don’t have some mysterious van staking out my house,” Jade sighed, trying a different approach. “Why would he be stalking you and not me? He actually talked to me.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know where you live? He had my ID out, not yours,” Corey brought up a valid point. The man had only looked through Corey’s wallet, not hers or Joel’s. And since Joel and Corey lived in the same complex, it would be understandable for him to find them both, but not find her.

Jade shook her head quickly. “So what, he’s just sitting outside your complex every night because he has nothing better to do?”

“He doesn’t want us going to the cops,” Corey told her. “He’s trying to scare us.”

“Sounds like it’s working,” Jade sighed before looking to her bedroom window. The curtains were drawn so she couldn’t see the street her house was on. She felt Corey’s paranoia as it started creeping into her own mind and quickly looked away from the curtains as if they were the source.

“If he doesn’t want you to go to the cops, then don’t. As I said, that night never happened. If that guy is stalking you, just ignore him.”

“Just ignore the guy who wants to murder me, sure. Great advice,” Corey responded sarcastically.

“He’s not going to murder you. All three of us would be dead already,” she tried reassuring him, but realized that it only made herself feel uneasy.

“Thanks, Jade. Love the optimism,” Corey sighed. He sounded defeated, and again Jade glanced at her window.

“Is he out there now?” Jade asked him.

“No.”

“Call me back if he shows up, okay?” Jade sat up on her bed, still staring at the curtains.

“Fine. I lo—”

“Later, Corey,” she cut him off, and he was quiet for a moment.

“…Later, Jade.”

Jade ended the call and tossed her phone onto her bed, still staring at the curtains while trying not to feel bad about cutting Corey off. “Shit,” she sighed to herself and stood up from her bed, walking the two steps to her window.

Jade was hesitant, her hands staying on each side of her curtains as she pondered if anyone was really outside. Before she could overthink the situation, Jade ripped the curtains open, revealing to her the quiet, middle-class neighborhood street outside. Nearly across from her room was an empty alleyway, and she couldn’t see a van or any other suspicious vehicles parked in it or along her street.

“Idiots,” Jade sighed in relief, before closing the curtains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “¿A dónde vas?” — Where are you going?
> 
> “¡Cállate!” — Shut up!
> 
> “Que pinche asco” — Disgusting, Gross
> 
> Huge thanks to my boyfriend for helping me with the Spanish and for being the beta reader/"drug guide" for this story. I've never done any kind of drug before and that man is a lifesaver.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this and I hope you guys enjoyed it so far. Nacho is much more involved in the next chapter, sorry he was barely in this one. I've been writing this for about a year now, since before Season 4 started last year, and I'm excited to finally be posting. Nacho deserves so much more love than he's getting and I'm glad other people have started writing about/for this character as well.
> 
> I'm hoping to post about once a week. I've got about 75k words written so far for this fic (I wasn't kidding in the tags about this being novel-length) but I don't typically write in chronological order so... hopefully, I can stick with it, for a while at least :)


	2. Criminal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Realizing that Corey and Joel aren’t just being paranoid, Jade takes matters into her own hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Fiona Apple's song "Criminal".
> 
> This chapter is about 15 pages in length and, according to Grammarly, will take about 25 and a half minutes to read.
> 
> Like before, this chapter takes place after Season One of Better Call Saul. The spoiler warning for season one remains in effect. 
> 
> Also like before, any Spanish used in the chapters will be translated in the notes after the chapter.
> 
> *Edited on 05/10/2020: Slight edits for continuity/show accuracy. I also rewrote a scene to exclude something I felt to be OOC for Nacho. There shouldn't be a need to reread.*

The bloody red “Fatality” showed up on the old television, declaring that Jade had won the match.

“Fucking cheater,” her brother sneered, and Jade rolled her eyes, waiting for their rematch countdown.

“Piss off, Charlie.”

“Play with any other character besides Raiden, and I’ll mop the floor with your ass,” Charlie countered.

“Not gonna happen, little bro. Raiden’s the only one I like,” Jade smirked, but Charlie’s eyes were glued to the fourteen-inch screen.

“Pussy,” he sighed as the announcer declared the beginning of the next match. Halfway through, Jade had the thought to let her brother win this one, she had been winning since dinner close to an hour ago, and didn’t want him rage quitting. Mashing buttons, she glanced over at him with his tongue caught in his teeth in concentration. Through the part in the curtains over Charlie’s window, she caught headlights turning off and noticed a van parked in the alley almost across from the window.

Jade’s stomach lurched, fear coiling in her chest, remembering Corey and Joel’s paranoia about that guy’s van. A moment later, she heard the announcer’s “Fatality!” and she looked back to the television screen.

“Finally! You’re losing your touch, sis!” Charlie obliviously taunted her.

“Don’t feel good,” she muttered, setting the controller on the mattress beside her and stood from the end of Charlie’s bed.

“What a sore loser,” he complained as Jade made for his bedroom door. “Don’t be a bitch!”

“Shut up,” she answered with the same tone before leaving his room and quickly walking down the hallway to her own. She shut and locked her bedroom door behind her before turning on the lights. She moved to her window then and ripped the curtains open, finding what she had feared. Parked in the alley across from her bedroom window was that same beat-up work van from almost a week previous.

Having ripped her curtains open, whoever was in the van would have close to a full view of her room, and would easily see her inside. She suddenly hoped that, with such an easy view of her, they’d not try to break in or spy on the rest of her family. From her perspective out her window, Jade couldn’t see who was in the van, if anyone. 

She stood at her window for a few minutes, her arms folded across her chest in a comforting manner. Jade had to gather up the courage to glance away and over at the digital clock beside her bed. The red numbers read just before none. She glanced back to the van parked in the alley across from her home before finally moving to her dresser. From the drawers, Jade pulled out some sweatpants and an over-sized Alice in Chains shirt she believed once belonged to Corey. Jade adjusted her pillows on her bed so that she could sit comfortably and still be facing her window. Crawling under her comforter to hide from view, Jade changed as quickly as possible. After, she kicked her tank top, jeans, and bra out from under the covers, letting them fall to the floor. Jade resurfaced then, poking her head out from covers, sitting with her back against the wall, so she could stare back at the van.

While sitting in silence, a horrifying thought crossed her mind. What if the van was only a decoy since she couldn’t see through the windshield? Jade had to shake that thought off. Half an hour in, her eyelids began to droop, while she was trying to listen in on the distorted game show playing on the living room TV. She sat up and leaned over her bed, turning on the radio on her alarm clock, hoping to keep her boredom at bay as she stared out her window.

Another half-hour passed, and Jade didn’t realize she was dozing off until she heard a knock on her door, and she jolted awake.

“Diana?” her mother’s voice cut through the cracks of her bedroom door.

“Huh?” she responded, willing her heart to stop trying to escape from her rib cage.

“Charles said you weren’t feeling well. Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine, that game just gave me a headache,” Jade answered, checking the time on the alarm clock again, before looking to the van. She had been staring at it while trying not to fall asleep for two hours.

“Okay...” her mother trailed off, and Jade knew she wanted to come in. She would have to close the curtains, however, or explain why she was sitting in bed staring at a van across the street, so the door remained closed. “Your little sister and I baked about six dozen cookies on accident if you want some.”

“Yeah, maybe later.”

“Alright. Your father and I are going to bed...”

“Night,” Jade answered, keeping her eyes on the van. She wondered if whoever was inside could see her talking.

“Goodnight, honey,” her mother finally left her door, and Jade heard her parent’s bedroom door close from across the hallway. Determined to keep awake this time, Jade got out of her bed and grabbed her teal Game Boy Color from on top of her dresser. She had thought about grabbing her phone but was afraid whoever was in the van would see her cell phone as a red flag. Yawning, Jade returned to her bed and forced herself to play Oracle of Seasons for the next hour.

Now two hours in, boredom and nerves had begun to take over, and the Game Boy fell into her lap as she stared at the van. She wondered how people managed to do this all night and realized her tactics were failing. Whoever was parked outside wasn’t satisfied with watching her just sit in her room. If anyone was even in the van, she reminded herself. That possibility kept haunting her.

Jade chewed on her bottom lip before tossing the Game Boy aside and getting out of her bed. Jade had to know that someone was in the van. The only way to know for sure was to actually go and check. She had a brief thought that this foolish plan might get her shot, but she had to know if this was for nothing. She unlocked her bedroom door and glanced at the van one last time before leaving her room and closing the door behind her. Jade walked to the kitchen then, noting that the crack beneath Charlie’s bedroom door was allowing some light to spill out onto the hallway floor, but her parent’s and Elle’s rooms were quiet and dark. He was probably the only one still awake.

Making her way to the kitchen, Jade flipped on a light and first got a glass of water before looking at the cookies her mother and Elle had baked. She had drunk nearly half of it before making up her mind on what to do. “You’re gonna get shot,” Jade sighed quietly to herself. She set her water down and grabbed a ceramic plate from one of the cabinets. She then loaded it up with the fresh chocolate chip cookies before wrapping it in tin foil. She checked the backyard, making sure no one was lurking outside before she made her way into the dark living room. Jade struggled a bit, holding the plate in her left hand as she pulled her brother’s Vans on with her right.

She unlocked the front door and hesitated a moment, wondering if she should grab her keys or phone in case someone locked her out, but decided against going back to her room. She exited the house instead, shutting the front door behind her and stared at the van again. Gathering her courage with a deep breath, Jade stepped forward and crossed the front lawn to the sidewalk. She was hesitant to cross the street; by then, she had lost most of her confidence and was still unable to see if anyone was in the van. She looked around the neighborhood, checking for anyone else who may be outside at the late hour, before making her way slowly over to the work van.

It wasn’t until she was across the street and at the mouth of the alley, that she could see the shadow of a man in the driver’s seat. Seeing him now, Jade nearly dropped the plate to run back to her home. Instead, her body froze. After an agonizingly long few seconds, she saw the man lean forward and start to roll down his window.

“What?” Jade heard him ask, and she frighteningly recognized his voice. Her mouth went immediately dry, and she couldn’t respond quickly enough for him. “Don’t make me come find you,” he had told her. Jade remembered the gravel digging into her knees and his intense eyes looking straight into her soul.

“What do you want?” he asked, raising his voice as if she hadn’t heard him.

“I... Uh,” Jade moved forward slowly, making her way to the open window. “Cookies...” was the only word she could manage to make out and uncovered the plate with a shaking hand. The man had ultimately decided her, Corey, and Joel could leave the power plant, what had they done to make him stalk them like this?

Amidst her thoughts, he was staring at Jade like she was nuts. She probably was, bringing some gang banger cookies while he was staking out her home.

“My—my mom just made them,” Jade pushed, and the man looked from her face to the plate, before looking back to her with a raised eyebrow. Without a verbal answer, he reached out of the van slowly and accepted the plate. Once he had the plate in the van, he set it on his dashboard and then nodded his head towards Jade’s house, indicating for her to leave.

She looked across the street, seeing her bedroom near perfect with her curtains thrown wide open and her light on. She could easily see where she had been sitting and even saw a blue blob on her bed, her Game Boy.

“Can I sit with you?” she turned around to face the man, the words spilling out of her mouth faster than she could think.

“No,” the man answered her just as quickly.

“It’s just... It’s so creepy with you... Sitting out here... Staring at my house,” Jade pressed, rubbing at the back of her neck and looking to her bedroom again.

“You don’t think it’s creepy that you’ve been staring at my van all night?” the man countered, and Jade frowned.

“I mean, what else am I supposed to do? I saw you pull up, I know you’re here. Am I supposed to ignore you?”

“Yes,” he answered her simply, and Jade crossed her arms.

“Well, I can’t. So can I sit with you?”

She watched the muscles in the man’s jaw flex a few times before he answered. “Why do you want to sit with me?”

“So I don’t have to stare at your van all night. You wouldn’t have to stare at my room either.”

The man was silent, and Jade patiently waited. His eyes lingered on her for a moment before looking to the cookies. He took one off the plate and brought it to his mouth for a bite as if he was testing whether it was good enough for her to stay or not.

“Get in,” he told her, swallowing his one bite before taking another. Wordlessly, Jade dropped her arms to her side and walked around the front of the van. As she came to the passenger door, she tugged on the handle, before climbing got into the seat next to him. Afterward, they sat in silence, Jade watching as the man finished his cookie before rolling up his window.

“So now what?” he asked her, breaking the silence first.

“Huh?” she asked, her eyebrows pushing together as she frowned in confusion.

“You brought me cookies, you got in my van. Now what?”

“Uh... I don’t know?” Jade answered with a shrug.

“You just wanted to hang out?” the man asked her skeptically with a shrug.

“Yeah— well… I wanted to know if anyone was in here. So I wasn’t like... Freaking out over nothing.”

“You found out,” he stated blandly, “now go home,” he pointed across the street at her bedroom.

“Are you gonna stay here?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then what’s the point?” Jade asked him, and he looked away from her, mumbling something in Spanish to himself.

“I don’t think you understand how this works,” he looked back to her using his hands for emphasis.

“Sure, I do. Your plan is to sit outside all night and scare the shit out of me. I can’t handle anymore of it, so I’m here,” Jade responded in a much more confident tone and fought not to crumble under his intimidating stare. “I just want to let you know there’s no need for this. I already know you can break into my room and murder me before I realize what’s happening. I’m not gonna snitch, so your message has been sent.”

“Forgive me,” he watched her for another moment, “I don’t trust you. Or your coward boyfriend, or your fat friend.”

Jade sighed, looking back to her bedroom, but wasn’t ready to give up. If he wanted to shoot her, he’d have done it already. Maybe. Possibly. “Then get to know me. That’s what we’re doing right now because I’m not entirely sure I trust you not to kill me.”

“Thought’s crossed my mind,” he responded in a lower voice, before reaching for another chocolate chip cookie.

“Oh,” Jade breathed, feeling her gut twist. She wondered what else she had expected from the man, though. He was a criminal.

“So,” the man started, halfway through his second cookie. “This,” he motioned to where she sat with his half cookie, “you said we didn’t have to stare at each other all night. So you won’t mind if I catch up on some work?”

“Work?” Jade asked meekly and jumped as he suddenly and loudly started up his old van.

“Work. Unless you’d rather stay here and go back home,” the man suggested. He put the half cookie into his mouth and raising his eyebrows slightly with his suggestion as he chewed.

“But you would leave?”

“No, I’d stay here, and we’d go back to staring at each other. Like it should be,” he answered after swallowing, and Jade turned to her right, looking for the van’s seat belt. She pulled it quickly across her chest and buckled it in place.

“Let’s go,” she told him and briefly saw a red rage flash across his dark eyes.

“Fine,” he answered with a tight jaw, pulling the plate of cookies from the dashboard and handing it to her. “Next time you do this, you should bring milk at least. Or coffee,” he complained as the van began rolling forward, and he turned onto Jade’s neighborhood street.

She watched her home pass through the man’s window before facing forward, hoping she hadn’t just killed herself. She was always warned not to get into vans with strangers. “Tell me how you take it, and I’ll bring you a thermos next time,” Jade finally answered, realizing just how impossibly stupid this was, letting him drive her off like he was. She still managed to keep her voice level as they stopped at a nearby stop sign.

“Last chance,” the man warned her, and Jade looked back to him, meeting his eyes with some resistance on her own end.

“I trust you,” she lied, and the man smiled, but it wasn’t friendly.

“No, you don’t.”

Jade didn’t argue with him; she didn’t trust him, but she needed him to trust her, and she had no other idea on how to convince him. “Where are we going?” she asked instead.

“El Michoacáno,” he responded, and Jade blinked as if it would help her understand.

“El what—o?” she asked, and the man glared at her pseudo-Spanish.

“El Michoacáno,” he repeated with a thicker accent. “It’s a restaurant.”

“You work at a restaurant?” Jade had to stop herself from laughing.

“I work out of a restaurant. I’m not about to bring you around my employer, so I’m taking you to El Michoacáno instead,” he explained, again emphasizing an accent when saying the restaurant’s name.

“What do you do at El Mit-ho-can-o?” Jade butchered the name, and the man didn’t bother responding right away. Jade patiently waited until he sighed and stopped at a red light as they left the neighborhood.

“I’m gonna be counting grams of meth because by bosses’ crew are idiots.”

“Um... Okay,” Jade responded, shrinking into her seat with the cookies in her lap.

“I’m not gonna have to lock you in the back, am I?” the man asked her, glancing at her from the road.

“I’m not a meth head,” she quickly said, offended. “Crystal’s, like, the drug everyone warns you about,” Jade turned to him, but he was already facing the road. He only responded with a “Huh,” and the rest of the twenty-minute ride was in silence.

Eventually, the man pulled his van into the lot of a small Mexican diner and drove around to the back. When he cut the engine, he turned to Jade briefly. “Bring those,” he pointed to the plate of cookies in her lap before getting out of his van.

“Okay,” Jade said to herself as his door closed. She picked up the plate and undid her seat belt, but as she turned to open up the passenger door, she found that the man had beat her to it.

“C’mon,” he beckoned her, and she hopped out of the van, watching him look around as if he was searching for unwanted eyes. He shut the door to the van behind her and led her to the back door of the restaurant. As he did, he was flipping through his keys. He found the one he needed and unlocked the door for them, before taking one last glance around outside.

“Go sit down,” he instructed her. Jade followed his pointing finger through the kitchen to the front of the restaurant. Silently, she obeyed, making her way to a booth in the seating area that wasn’t too close to any windows. She sat facing the kitchen, hearing the man moving around in the back before eventually coming out with his hands full as well as donning latex gloves. He had two glasses and a gallon of milk in one arm, and a large plastic tub of Regalo Helado ice cream in the other.

“What if I’m lactose intolerant?” Jade asked him as the man set everything down.

His eyebrows pressed together at her question, creasing his forehead. “What? Do you want cookies and soda? There’s cerveza in the cooler,” he jabbed his thumb towards the kitchen.

“I’m joking,” Jade told him quietly, reaching for one of the glasses, but the man grabbed it and the gallon of milk before she could. She watched him fill it with the milk in silence.

“Here,” he set the glass down in front of her before pouring himself one as well.

“Thanks,” she muttered, taking a sip of the ice-cold milk before reaching for her first cookie of the night.

The man didn’t respond as he sat across from her in the booth. She looked from him to the tub of ice cream and thought about vocalizing the question in her mind about missing spoons and bowls. Before she could, the man pried the lid off the container, and she realized that there wasn’t ice cream inside. Jade watched in silence, her glass of milk held up to her lips. He pulled out a digital scale, cutting board, and then a notepad. Following was a box cutter, a box of extra razor blades, and an unmistakable block of plastic, tape, and drugs. Jade felt suddenly confused when he continued pulling items out, a big bottle of joint supplements, and a large yellow tin of Nido powdered milk. Still inside, she could see more bricks of drugs as well as another scale. She looked back to the man, only to see him watching her, taking in her reaction.

“Right,” she said, looking back to the man as he set a scale and a brick on the table. “Counting out grams.”

“Don’t try anything,” he warned, looking back to the items he had pulled out of the icecream tub. Jade shook her head quickly, taking another sip of her milk before reaching for another cookie. She was quiet then, watching him silently and methodically start breaking open the supplement capsules onto the cutting board. He was dividing each pill into two separate piles and stopped when there were about six or so on the cutting board. After, he cut the drug brick open with the box cutter and added the granular powder to the capsule powder with the blade of the box cutter.

Jade looked to the pill bottle then, but the label was half turned away from her and she couldn’t read what they were. It looked like any other generic grocery store supplement, though. She looked back to him, but he was absorbed in his work, already mixing the two powders together, reminding Jade of when she, Lena, and Taylor had done coke that one time.

She looked back to the man briefly, before hesitantly reaching forward and grabbing the pill bottle so she could better examine it. When she did, the man stopped what he was doing and watched her read the label.

“What?” he asked her, the sharpness of his tone told her that he was annoyed.

“Um…” she started, setting the bottle back in its place. Jade realized then that he was now adding the fortified powdered milk onto the scale with the drugs and joint supplement, whatever MSM was. “What exactly are you doing?” There was something in her mind screaming for her not to say anything about how odd the situation was, but she had to answer him.

“Really?” he rose an eyebrow at her, and Jade felt her mouth go dry, quickly reaching for her milk again.

“I mean, like… You’re making sure your customers have healthy joints and bones?” Jade didn’t miss his glare. “Okay, cool, sorry,” she added, before taking a sip of her milk and leaning back in her seat slightly.

“I’m cutting it,” the man defended himself but stopped quickly. He looked like he wanted to say more, and all Jade had to do was wait another moment and grab another cookie for herself. “You think the cartel puts pure meth out on the streets? Idiots would kill themselves with it. Don’t look at me with that judgment. You said you didn’t do meth, anyways.”

“I’m not— I don’t— I was just… sorry,” Jade and the man both sighed before he continued his work. “So, does the cartel always stiff their customers?” Jade couldn’t keep quiet but wondered if she could get him to talk to her while he was working.

“Its not ‘stiffing customers’,” he explained again, “I’m cutting it down. Just like dope and coke.”

“So, you’re telling me when I did coke I was snorting joint supplements and powdered milk?” she asked him, allowing her voice a slight edge. At least it seemed to make him talk. She tried to hide her surprise when she saw him smirk.

“It was more likely laundry detergent or caffeine—” He seemed to realize he had lost his scary, tough-guy act and lost his smirk, instead glaring at her. “Stop it. Shut up. Don’t talk, just sit there.”

She thought about agreeing, he was easily intimidating when he wanted to be. But there was no way she could get him to trust her with silence, so she cleared her throat and said, “Well, that’s boring. You got another scale? Let me help, at least.”

“You don’t know how,” he told her, focusing on what he was doing with the powders and scale.

“Doesn’t look hard. You’re just cutting everything together,” Jade pointed out. The man dropped what he was doing after another second. He leaned forward on the table and pressed the knuckles of his thumbs into his eyes with a sigh. “Please?” she tried, hearing him mumble something under his breath, but she couldn’t catch it, figuring it was more Spanish.

“If you don’t do it right, you’ll ruin it. You can’t do this,” the man leaned back so he could meet Jade’s eyes.

“You could teach me,” Jade smiled at his expression, realizing that she was wearing him down fast.

He mulled her words over before he reached into the ice cream tub and pulled out a fist full of small, empty baggies. “Bag,” he told her, shoving them across the table at her.

Without a word, she sat forward, setting her milk on the table before opening one of the small baggies. She used the scrap of paper the guy had placed on the scale to funnel the meth powder into the baggie before sealing it.

“That good?” she asked as if he were evaluating her, and he didn’t answer, but continued cutting.

After finishing off her fourth or fifth baggie, she glanced over to the man working across from her. Jade fought off a yawn, noting it must be past midnight already. In an effort to keep herself engaged, she spoke up again, despite his earlier warning not to talk. “My name is Jade,” she stated, and the man didn’t even look up.

“I know,” he stated in a near monotone.

“That’s… not how introductions typically go,” Jade sighed, wondering if she’d have to ask for his name flat out, or if he’d even give it to her.

“You’re waiting until now to introduce yourself?” he questioned and glanced over to her.

“Uh, I just… I don’t know your name?” she asked him, reaching for her milk and not bothering with another cookie due to the meth dust on her fingers.

“Really?” he questioned, raising an eyebrow at her, and Jade shrugged.

“Worth a shot, right? I’d rather not refer to you as like, van guy, or something.”

“‘Van guy’?” he quoted before pointing at the freshly measured meth on the scale for her to bag. “Nacho,” he said as she once more funneled it into a baggie. For a split second, Jade’s tired brain thought that it was some new street name for the meth and almost laughed, finding it odd.

“What nachos?” she asked, looking from the baggie to the man with a smile.

“That’s my name.”

“Your… you want me to call you Nacho?” Jade clarified, and the man’s jaw tightened as he leaned back in his seat.

“You asked, so I’m telling you. My name is Nacho.”

“For real, though? Like, you’re not playing a joke on me or—”

“My name is Ignacio; I go by Nacho,” he explained quickly, and she nodded, glad that she hadn’t laughed before. “What kind of name is Jade? That’s a rock,” he then added, and immediately she was as offended as he was.

“It is not a rock, it’s my name,” she told him, annoyance showing through her voice now.

“Who names their kid after a green rock?” he smirked at her reaction, and she immediately crossed her arms.

“Who names their kid after cheesy chips?” she shot back, and his smirk turned into a full smile, nearly contagious, and Jade had to fight herself to keep her frown.

“Cheesy chips?” he questioned before chuckling.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m calling you. Cheesy Chips,” Jade looked away from him and back to the meth, trying her hardest not to smile.

“That’s fine with me, Roca Verde.”

“Really?” Jade couldn’t help but laugh then. “Fine, that’s fine. Call me rock-a-whatever if it makes you feel better about Cheesy Chips. I don’t care,” she smiled as he poured more powder onto the scale between them. “Hey, can I like, wash my hands? I’m dying for another cookie but don’t want to eat meth.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” the man, now named Nacho, nodded towards the back of the restaurant.

~-----~

“Hey,” Jade heard, feeling someone press their fingers into her shoulder to gently shake her. She barely opened her blue eyes, not quite awake enough to take in her surroundings. “We gotta go.” She moved her eyes up to look at who was waking her up. Upon seeing Nacho, the events of the night prior slammed into her like a freight train, and she quickly sat up straight, looking around the restaurant.

“What?” she slurred as her body woke up along with her brain, and she looked back up to Nacho, feeling her cheek ache where she had been resting it on her forearm. She had been asleep for some time and didn’t even realize.

“We have to go. The restaurant owner is trying to open,” Nacho nodded his head towards the kitchen, and Jade looked that way. There was a mustached man behind the counter watching the two of them. Jade turned back to Nacho, subconsciously trying to flatten her long blonde hair against her head in case it was messed up.

“I passed out?” she asked, looking back to Nacho, where he stood next to the booth. There was no trace of the drugs they were cutting and bagging left on the table.

“Yeah,” he nodded once, looking slightly impatient with her.

“How long was I asleep?” Jade yawned, getting out of her seat when Nacho moved to the side to give her room.

He shrugged at first, picking up the empty plate she had brought from home.

“What does a shrug mean?” she asked, looking out the windows of the restaurant to see the sun brightly illuminating the sky and traffic on the road outside. She felt her stomach sink and checked her pockets for her cell phone, but remembered that she didn’t bring it.

“Five hours,” he answered her straight this time.

“Five— Five hours?” she asked quickly, looking for a clock in the diner.

“Yeah,” he tried ushering Jade to the back of the restaurant, but she was reluctant to follow. She didn’t have her wallet either, which meant she didn’t have her bus pass or any money. She didn’t have a way home, and could barely remember where the restaurant was in the first place.

“What were you doing for five hours? You just let me pass out?” Jade asked, finally following him to the back of the restaurant.

Nacho thanked the man watching them in Spanish before leading Jade to the back door. “I finished working,” Nacho shrugged as he held the back door open for her, and then closed it behind them both.

“You— You just…” Jade sighed in frustration, pressing her palms into her eyes. If she understood Nacho correctly, he had just let her pass out. At the same time, he worked through cutting down what had to be a kilo of methamphetamine powder. The fact that she had passed out around him, some scary as fuck gang banger for the cartel, was alarming in itself.

“Hey,” Nacho called, “Jade,” she removed her hands from her eyes and blinked to regain focus, seeing him standing at his van near the open passenger-side door. “Are you coming with, or do you just want to stand there?” Nacho offered to drive her home in his own way. It got Jade to move away from the back door, walking towards the passenger side of his van. At least she wasn’t stranded, but she also wasn’t sure if he’d actually take her home or not. She held her tongue as she got into the passenger side of Nacho’s work van so she wouldn’t thank him. After, Nacho silently handed her the plate. He closed the passenger door before walking around to the other side and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Jade stared at the empty plate in her lap as they silently drove off. She noticed that they were headed in the general direction of her home, so she didn’t bother questioning where he was taking her. She couldn’t keep silent for the whole twenty-minute ride; so, near her neighborhood, she blurted out, “This isn’t going to stop, is it?”

“What?” Nacho asked her, not even bothering to glance over at her from the road.

“This whole stalking thing,” Jade clarified. As they rolled to a stop at a red light, Nacho finally looked over to her.

“No,” he answered her flat out.

“No?” Jade asked, raising an eyebrow, “Why not?”

“Cutting meth with you and having you pass out is supposed to make me trust you?” Nacho asked her before turning back to the road, the light turning green.

“You could’ve woke me up, shit,” Jade responded, turning forward in her seat as well. “You’ve already scared the fuck out of all three of us. We get it, okay?”

“There’s a lot more at stake for just scaring you and your friends,” Nacho told her, growing less patient with their conversation.

“Then what? What do you want?” Jade asked, and he didn’t answer her. She had an idea suddenly, but it was a terrible one. Jade kept silent for a moment, working it through her head and trying to figure out if it would be worse than someone sitting outside her house every night. What if he broke into her house and robbed her? How would she explain that to her parents? How long did she have before Nacho decided it wasn’t worth it at all, and he really did kill her and her friends?

“Who’s dealing all that product?”

“What?” Nacho asked her with a sharp tone, taking a second to glance over from the road. The short question was meant to let Jade know she was treading dangerous waters, but she already knew that.

“What do you do with all of it? You had, like, a ton of it,” Jade started, and Nacho quickly pulled into her neighborhood. He was on the wrong street, however, and he stopped his van in the middle of the road.

“Stop talking before you say something stupid,” he warned her.

“I—I mean,” she lost nearly all of her confidence. “You don’t want us to go to the cops, so why would we go to the cops if we were… if we helped?” she suggested timidly.

Nacho looked irritated like he had when she had initially walked out of her house with a plate of cookies. He looked away from her, examining the street and houses around them as he thought. Eventually, he ran a hand down his face and sighed, but he didn’t answer her.

“I mean, that makes sense, right?” she pressed, and Nacho finally looked back over to her.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, putting the van back into drive. “You understand what you just asked, right?” he questioned as Jade faced forward in her seat.

“Yeah,” she sighed, hoping it wasn’t a mistake. She didn’t even know how Corey and Joel would feel about it, or if her offer also extended to them. Nacho left her in silence again as he navigated the neighborhood towards her house. In the process, she spotted two groups of school kids on opposite corners of the road they were on and realized it was a school day. Jade quickly sunk in her seat, low enough to hide in Nacho’s van as he passed both groups; the junior high kids, including Charlie, and the elementary kids, including Elle, while they waited for their school busses. Nacho glanced over at her with an eyebrow raised but said nothing to Jade about her odd behavior.

Jade popped back up in her seat once the van turned out of view of the kids, and a few seconds later, her house came into view. Her father’s ugly Chevy Citation wasn’t in the driveway, and the garage door was closed. Her mom might have been having one of her bad days, so she might still be home in bed. Otherwise, Jade was confident she was locked out of her house.

Nacho pulled to a stop in front of the empty driveway and, unprompted, Jade unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the van door after a brief, awkward search for the door handle. “Thanks,” she told him before she could stop herself, while she slipped out of the van. He only nodded in response, so Jade shut the door and turned around to walk up the path towards her front door.

She heard Nacho drive away as she reached the door, and, as expected, it was locked. She pressed her thumb into the doorbell several times before yelling, “Mom!” Jade was only concerned with getting inside and not about the questions her mother would undoubtedly have.

Seconds passed, and Jade quickly lost hope that her mom had stayed home that day. With a heavy sigh, Jade leaned her forehead against the door. Corey and Joel’s apartments were the closest to walk to, but even that was a forty-five-minute walk. It wasn’t even eight in the morning, and it was probably in the high eighties, and Jade believed that she might die before getting there.

Jade, not looking forward to the long walk in her tee-shirt and sweatpants, with no bra and her brother’s Vans on her feet, turned around and slid down the door, holding the plate to her chest. Jade realized then, that Nacho, though he had initially driven off, must have only done so to turn his van around. His van was facing the opposite direction in the road, and he was giving her an inquisitive look from the rolled-down driver’s side window.

“I’m locked out,” Jade called, feeling awkward. Maybe she could get him to drive her to Corey’s instead. Quickly, Jade realized she didn’t have enough confidence to ask, and Nacho would probably just leave her stranded anyway.

She wasn’t surprised when Nacho was silent. He did surprise her when he pulled his van to the side of the road and got out. Jade watched him, dumbfounded as he walked across the street, and only scrambled to her feet when he was in her front yard.

“What are you doing?” she asked, watching Nacho walk up to her bedroom window and quickly joined him. The curtains were still wide open, and her bedroom door was shut, so Jade figured her parents never checked on her and assumed she was still asleep.

“Getting you into your room,” he stated, working loose the screen outside her window. It popped out of place in seconds, and after he started forcing the glass to slide open.

“You’re uncannily good at that,” Jade crossed her arms, watching him effectively break into her room in only a few seconds.

“Just a party trick,” he smirked at her, stepping back so Jade could access her window. She realized she had another problem in how high up it was. With the foundation of the house, the bottom of her window was barely to the height of her chest.

“What type of parties do you go to?” she asked, not expecting him to answer while she lightly tossed the plate onto her carpeted floor. Jade figured she couldn’t climb into her bedroom window while holding the plate. She had aimed for the clothes she had shoved onto the floor last night near her bed so it wouldn’t break.

“Need help?” Nacho asked instead of answering her, and she turned around with a nod.

“Yeah,” she responded, and he took a step towards her. “Um,” she started, glancing awkwardly between him and the window. For a split second, he looked just as unsure as she was, before silently offering to pick her up. She accepted, having not much else for a choice, and placed a hand on his shoulder as he bent down and wrapped one of his arms around her thighs before lifting her up. Jade grabbed onto the window and pulled herself through; once she had one of her feet firmly on the floor of her room, Nacho let her go.

“Uh, thanks again,” she said, and Nacho nodded.

“I’ll call you about that offer,” he said while picking the screen of her window up off the ground. He wedged it back into place for Jade. She didn’t bother asking if he had her phone number; if he found out where she lived, he probably already had it. She watched him turn around and walk back to his van before she slid the glass of the window closed and drew shut the curtains. Jade chanced one final peek out her window, seeing Nacho start to drive off before she kicked her brother’s Vans off her feet and picked up the plate on her floor, making her way to her bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Cervezas" — Beers
> 
> “Roca Verde” — Literally means “green rock”, its also a city in Costa Rica.
> 
> Thanks to my boyfriend again for translating the Spanish, beta reading, and telling me what an eight ball is.
> 
> Thank you all for reading this and I hope you enjoyed chapter two as much as I liked writing it.


	3. My Own Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nacho takes Jade up on her offer. Jade, Corey, and Joel start learning the ropes of Albuquerque’s drug underworld. Jade’s personality quickly grows on Nacho and his inner circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Deftones' song "My Own Summer" (because I suck at naming chapters with song names).
> 
> This chapter is about 15 and a half novel pages with an estimated reading time of 29 minutes, according to Grammarly.
> 
> For spoilers, this chapter takes place after season one of Better Call Saul. The spoiler warning for season one remains in effect.
> 
> There's also a literal crapton of Spanish used in this chapter, and of course, it's translated in the notes after the chapter.
> 
> *Edited on 06/18/2020: Gramatical/Verbaige edits only. There shouldn't be a need to reread.*

“Jade!” she heard her brother’s voice through her bedroom door. She barely opened her eyes before they fell closed again. “Jade, the phone!” Charlie kept calling, and she opened her eyes once more when he started banging on her door.

“‘M—up!” she tried to yell back, before forcing herself to turn over and sit up in her bed. “What?” she called out and thought she heard her brother punch her door.

“Wake up, it’s, like, after two! And some dude’s calling you!” he shouted through the bedroom door.

“‘Some dude’?” Jade asked herself, rubbing at her eyes before yawning. Finally, she swung her legs out of bed and stood up on uneasy feet. “What do you mean, some dude?” Jade asked, wobbling to her bedroom door and unlocking it.

“I dunno,” Charlie uselessly offered, shoving the handset to their house phone at her. As soon as she took the phone, he walked back down the hallway, turning into the kitchen.

“Corey, I swear if this is some idea of a joke—” Jade cleared her throat before speaking into the receiver, shutting her bedroom door behind her.

“I’m not your boyfriend,” a vaguely familiar voice came from the other end. Jade realized it wasn’t Taylor or Joel either, but couldn’t put a face to it.

“Oh— I’m sorry, I don’t…” Jade started and had to stop herself. “Who’s this?”

“Does that mean your deal’s off the table?” the voice asked, and Jade immediately recognized Nacho.

“Oh, right! I mean no, it’s still up. Is that… Why are you calling the house phone?” Jade asked, checking out her window to see if he was sitting in his van in the alley. He wasn’t, and Jade didn’t blame him. It had rained the day previously, and the temperature was in the high nineties, so the remaining humidity was unbearable.

“That’s the number I have for you,” he explained as Jade pulled back from her window.

“Take my cell number and call me back… uh, please?” Jade headed for her bedroom door then, rattling off her number when he was ready.

“Cool,” Nacho said before she heard him hang up with a beep. She looked at the small screen for the receiver as she walked it back to the living room, realizing she should have written down his number as well. Before she could dwell on the thought, she heard her cell phone ringing in her room. Quickly, she threw the house phone back on its base and ran to her room, closing the door behind her.

“Hey,” she answered before her phone kicked him over to her voice mail.

“So the deal is still on?” he asked her again while Jade sat on the edge of her messy bed.

“Yeah, of course,” she answered him with a nod though he couldn’t see her.

“And Corey and Joel are down?” Nacho asked, and Jade felt her mouth go dry despite the humidity.

“Um… They’re down—I mean, they will be down. I’ll have to tell them.”

“You didn’t tell them?” Nacho sighed on the other end, and Jade felt her gut twist.

“They’ll be down, Nacho. Trust me.”

“Fine,” he answered her but sounded unconvinced. “I need you all by five.”

“Um…” _shit_. “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll tell them now,” Jade tried to sound level and calm.

“Good. And wear baggy pants,” Nacho told her, but before Jade could ask why he had hung up again.

Jade sat in silence, pulling her phone down to her lap and looking up her recent calls so she could save the number Nacho had called from, figuring it would be a smart thing to do. After saving him as a new contact, she sent a text to the same number.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
is this a cell

Once she was done with that, she pulled up Corey on her phone and pressed the “call” button, laying back on her bed and hoping he was awake. Just before she thought it would go to voicemail, he answered with an obviously tired grunt.

“Hey, I need you to wake up. Like, right now,” Jade told him and heard a sigh in response. “Corey I’m not kidding. Wake up, Nacho needs me, you, and Joel at five.”

“Who?” he asked her.

“From the uh… The power plant in the desert…” Jade hadn’t even mentioned her night with Nacho to him yet.

“Who?” he asked again, even more confused.

The gangster who had a gun up to your head the other night is what she wanted to say. Instead, she told him, “The guy who’s been giving us hell after interrupting his deal. Remember?”

“…Oh.” He did, Jade could tell just by his tone. “Wait, did you call him Nacho?”

“Yes, that’s his name,” Jade explained. Apparently, he hadn’t heard of it either.

“So, like you’re talking to him? What the hell does ‘he needs us’ mean?”

“Yes, I’m talking to him, Corey. Because I don’t like the feeling that I can get jumped or shot or have my throat slit at any second of every single day,” Jade retorted but made sure to keep her voice quiet. Sitting up to check the bottom of her door, it didn’t look like Elle or Charlie were standing outside listening.

“But why does he need us, Jade?” Corey asked, sounding fully awake now.

“We’re gonna be dealing for him,” she said quickly as if speaking it faster would make the situation better.

“Dealing for him?!” he asked, raising his voice versus her softer tone. “Dealing what?”

“I dunno, probably meth?” she suggested, and Corey laughed humorlessly on the other line.

“Really? You told him we’d deal meth?”

“Look, it’s a trust thing, okay? If we start doing this, then he’ll lay off the heat a while, and we’ll… we’ll be alive.”

“Jesus Christ, Jade… Does Joel already know?”

Jade took a moment to respond, “No… I was going to call him next.”

“Don’t,” he told her but continued when Jade was about to protest, saying that neither of them really had a choice. “I’ll call him.”

“Fine. Nacho needs us at five,” Jade repeated. “He also told me to wear baggy pants, not sure if that was just for me…”

“So he’s telling you what to wear too?” Corey asked, and Jade rolled her eyes.

“Corey, shut up.”

“Whatever, this whole thing is just weird. What do you mean at five? Like at our places? Your place?”

Jade hadn’t even thought to ask. “I’ll check and let you know. Call Joel.”

“‘Kay,” Corey agreed before adding, “Love you.”

It caught Jade off guard, though he had been saying it for a while now. Of course, she’d respond but more so to avoid drama than anything else. “Love you too, bye,” she said quickly and hung up, her phone dropping it on the bed next to her. After, she rubbed her hands over her face and checked the alarm clock next to her, noting she still had just over two hours before whatever was happening at five pm. Due to nerves, she wasn’t hungry, so instead, Jade got out of bed for the second time that afternoon and made her way to the bathroom to shower. By the time she got back out, she had wasted half an hour and took her time toweling off and getting back to her room to change.

Jade didn’t recheck her cell phone until after she had exhausted her options for baggy pants. She had a new text and flipped her phone open to see it was from Nacho.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Yes.

“Okay,” Jade stared at the one word longer than needed before deciding to respond.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
where do you need us at 5

After, she dropped her phone back on her bed and pulled on her old high school gym shorts, as well as a tight black tank top. She bet Charlie had baggier jeans for her to wear, though she didn’t pride herself on being the same size as her lanky, thirteen-year-old brother. She left her room again, making the short three-step trek down the hall to Charlie’s door before knocking.

“What?” she heard Charlie call through the door, so Jade took the liberty of opening it for herself and stepping inside.

“I need some of your jeans,” she crossed her arms, and Charlie looked up from his TV, pausing his video game.

“Weird,” his nose wrinkled at her statement, and he didn’t make a single move like he was going to get up and grab a pair for her.

“Whatever,” she scoffed and started looking through his closet herself, pulling out the first pair she saw and holding them to her hips.

“You’re gonna wear them? What the hell Jade! No!” Charlie dropped his controller and stood up, but Jade had already folded the jeans up into her arms. Quickly, avoiding Charlie, she stepped out of his room.

“That’s what I was insinuating, yeah,” she told him and made her way back to her own room, Charlie following.

“Why? Wear your own clothes, I don’t want you wearing mine!” his tone was close to a whine now, and Jade turned to face him once she was in her doorway.

“I need baggy jeans. Its just one night. Chill out, okay?”

“Jesus, you’re such a bitch,” Charlie sighed, giving up and turning around, slamming his door after he re-entered his room. Jade then shut her door and tossed her brother’s jeans onto the bed, fishing her phone out of her unkempt bed covers to find Nacho had replied.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
I can pick you up.  
Text:2/2  
Unless you can get to your boyfriends apartment.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
no I can get to coreys

~-----~

The forty-five-minute walk to Corey and Joel’s apartment complex was hell. At four in the afternoon, the temperatures in Albuquerque were nearing one hundred degrees. Jade was already regretting wearing a black Tool band shirt along with her brother’s baggy jeans. She had her sunglasses, but she didn’t think to grab a hair tie before she left her house.

By the time she had arrived at the complex, she could just tell her cheeks were red, and she could feel herself sweat. She was thankful for the shade between the apartment buildings, and she took a seat at a table near one of the pools, pulling out her phone to text Corey. She wasn’t sure if she should head to his apartment or Joel’s, and since they were on opposite ends of the complex, Jade didn’t want to walk any further than she had to.

To: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
where r u guys

Jade set her phone on the table in front of her and waited. She had leaned forward, so her elbows were on the table, and was willing herself to cool off.

From: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
we r at joels

Corey didn’t take long to respond, but despite it being nearly five o’clock already, Jade took her time getting to Joel’s ground floor apartment. She knocked instead of texting Corey back, hearing the television on, and figuring Joel’s parents were home. It was Joel’s mother who answered the door, a shorter woman whose only tell of her age was a few gray strands on her head of otherwise jet black hair. She looked genuinely surprised to see Jade at her door.

“Oh, Jade, honey. Joel didn’t say you were coming over,” she smiled, letting Jade into the air conditioning, and she almost felt like she would get goosebumps from how hot her skin was. “It’s blistering out, I could have gone and picked you up.”

“I didn’t mind the walk,” Jade smiled and lied. “I don’t think we’re staying long anyways, we were gonna head out.”

“Hopefully, somewhere indoors. You and Corey will fry out there. Do you want a Popsicle?” the shorter woman asked.

“Yes, please. That sounds amazing,” Jade couldn’t deny and followed Joel’s mother to the kitchen, waving at Joel’s giant of a father as she passed him in his recliner.

Joel’s mother opened up the freezer door on top of the old fridge in their apartment and pulled out a large, already opened box of Popsicles. “What kind, do you want cherry? Grape?”

“Grape is fine,” Jade answered and accepted the frozen wrapper handed to her.

“Tell the boys to let you cool down first before you go back out. You’re red as a tomato,” Joel’s mother told her, putting the box back into the freezer.

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” Jade laughed but didn’t doubt her appearance. She peeled back the wrapper of the Popsicle as she walked out of the kitchen and headed to the short hallway instead of back into the living room with Joel’s mother. She didn’t bother knocking, and instead opened the door to Joel’s bedroom, finding Joel sitting on his bed and Corey across from him on a beanbag chair on the ground. Unsurprisingly, neither of them looked to be in the best mood.

“Hey,” she greeted them, closing the door behind her and sticking the end of the purple-colored Popsicle in her mouth.

“This is a joke, right?” Joel asked her flat out before Corey could say anything to her, and Jade stood in front of the bedroom door, dropping the cheery mood she had faked for Joel’s parents.

“No, it's real. I’m trying to work something out with Nacho—”

“When did you even talk to him? Why? The guy wanted to kill us a few nights ago!” Joel asked her, having to keep his voice down so his parents wouldn’t hear through the thin walls.

“That's exactly why,” Jade placed her free hand on her hip. “This will get him to trust us and lay off, okay?”

“Or he’s just gonna get all three of us together to kill us and dump or bodies—”

“Corey, really?” Jade stopped him. “Trust me, okay?”

“You? Sure. But trust him?” Corey asked and shook his head. “Naw. Not after he had a gun to my head.”

“He didn’t shoot,” Jade weakly argued, sticking the Popsicle back in her mouth for an excuse to say even less. She already knew this was a bad idea, but she also believed that this was the only thing that could help their situation.

“Yeah, not yet,” Corey told her before rubbing at his face.

“So, how did this even happen? You just started talking to him?” Joel asked her, and she nodded, moving away from the door finally and sitting on the floor between Joel’s bed and Corey on the beanbag.

“I saw him parked outside my house, so I went to talk to him,” Jade oversimplified the night she had spent with Nacho at El Mitchoacano.

“Are you insane?” Joel asked her, “He could’ve killed you right there. You can’t just walk up to stalker vans like that!”

“I did more than you guys, at least,” Jade defended herself, pulling her phone out to check the time, it was just after five pm, but she had no text or calls yet from Nacho.

“You expected us to walk up to a guy who wants to murder us?” Corey asked her before looking at Joel. “Was she always this nuts?”

“Hey,” Jade kicked at the beanbag chair he was in, “It worked out. I made the right call, okay?”

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t nuts,” Corey argued, and Jade rolled her eyes.

“So,” Joel asked before Jade could respond to her boyfriend. “What does it mean that we’re dealing for him now?” He looked to Jade for an answer, but when she stayed silent, he sought out Corey.

“Is he going to throw drugs at us and expect us to throw money back at him? Who are we supposed to sell to, Lena and Taylor?” Corey added, and Jade sighed.

“Lena and Taylor don’t do meth,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what he expects, but we’ll do it.”

“Meth?” Joel asked her. “Did you say meth? You told that guy that we’d be meth dealers?”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Jade sighed, trying to hide in her phone as she pulled it out of her pocket, wondering why Nacho hadn’t said anything to her yet.

“That’s a pretty big fucking deal, Jade,” Corey corrected her.

“A bigger deal than being stalked by a scary gang banger?” Jade looked up from her phone, an eyebrow raised. Corey didn’t respond. Instead, he glanced at Joel on his bed before looking down to the ground. Jade knew that he agreed with her, and, from his silence, so did Joel.

“That him?” Corey asked her in the silence after, all three of them heard her phone go off. Jade glanced down before nodding.

“Yeah, that's him,” she answered, reading the text Nacho had sent her.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Which apartment are you at?

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
joels

Jade assumed that Nacho knew where Joel’s apartment was when she responded since both of the guys had noticed him in the parking lots before.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Meet me outside.

“He’s here,” Jade said, flipping her phone closed before shoving it in her pocket and standing up from Joel’s floor.

“Great,” Corey sighed. “Fantastic.”

“You’re sure he’s not just gonna try and kill us right now?” Joel asked Jade, standing from his bed and towering over her.

“Trust me, okay?” Jade reassured him before sticking her Popsicle in her mouth. She led them out of Joel’s room, and Corey waited with her by the front door while Joel said goodbye to his parents.

“You kids behave, alright?” his bother told them sternly as Joel headed for the front door. Jade took her Popsicle out of her mouth to smile at the shorter woman.

“Of course we will, we always do,” Corey falsely reassured her, and Jade felt the smallest twinge of guilt. Because of Jade, her only son was going to sell meth on the streets of Albuquerque that night.

That twinge she had felt quickly evaporated as she stepped back into the summer heat.

“He said to meet him outside, I figure he’s in the closer lot,” Jade told them both once Joel’s front door was shut, but neither of them bothered to lead the way. Jade stood there as she waited for a response from either of them before she decided to lead them. After she turned her back, she rolled her eyes and made her way towards the parking lot she figured Nacho would be waiting in. Silently, the guys followed her around a couple of apartment buildings and to the open security gate that was partially overgrown with Oleanders and some sort of ivy vines.

Once the parking lot was in view on the other side of the open gate, Nacho’s beat-up van was nearly unmistakable, parked several yards away. If the faded orange and brown paint job wasn’t enough, Nacho himself was standing outside it, waiting for them. Jade took a deep breath, removing the Popsicle from her mouth before starting towards him.

She turned around to make sure the guys were following her, only to find that they weren’t. “Really? Guys, c’mon! Seriously?” she told them, stopping as well, afraid they would chicken out last second, and then Nacho really would kill them.

“It just… It don’t feel right,” Joel looked past Jade to where Nacho was waiting outside his van.

“Are you two serious?” Jade asked, glancing at Nacho as well, who looked like he was growing impatient. The two guys only glanced at each other, and Jade sighed. “Watch, okay? He’s chill.” Jade turned around and walked alone to Nacho, stopping just before him.

“What's up with them?” he asked her, nodding towards where Joel and Corey were still standing.

“They, uh… They’re trying to find their balls. They’ll be over in a second,” Jade lowered her voice, making sure only Nacho could hear. He huffed in laughter, half a smile on his lips as he looked back over to them.

“Hurry up,” he called over to them before looking back to Jade. She had her Popsicle back in her mouth, sucking to try and keep it from completely melting in the heat, and his eyes were drawn to it before he rose an eyebrow at her.

“What? Want me to go grab you one?” she asked, the Popsicle leaving her mouth with a quiet “pop!” and Nacho shook his head.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he looked back to Corey and Joel, who were finally walking over. “She explained what you’re doing?” he asked them, crossing his arms.

“I told them, yeah,” Jade answered for them when Corey and Joel just looked at each other.

Nacho looked back to her, silent for a second before responding. “Cool. Get in,” he said simply, turning around as his arms fell from his chest. He opened the passenger door for Jade, looking back to her after, silently waiting.

“Thanks,” she told him quietly, looking back to Corey and Joel, who exchanged worried looks with one another, before moving to the back of Nacho’s van. Jade climbed into the passenger seat, and Nacho waited for her before closing the door. He didn't do the same for Corey and Joel. Instead, he walked around the front of his van to the driver’s side, leaving the guys to get into the back by themselves. Jade turned in her seat, sticking her Popsicle in her mouth as she watched them get in and close the back doors. She looked to Nacho on her left after as he started up his van. He didn’t so much as glance over to her before driving out of the apartment’s parking lot.

The four of them were silent for the entire ride. However, Jade did keep glancing over at Nacho, trying to read whatever slightly pissed slightly neutral expression he had. She also kept glancing back at Corey and Joel in the back of Nacho’s van. Corey had sat behind her seat, his back to the van’s outer wall so he could face Joel, who had taken a spot behind Nacho. She wasn’t able to get any of the three men to acknowledge her with just her glances, so she turned back in her seat. Defeated, she slumped down with a sigh before shoving the grape Popsicle back in her mouth.

She had finished it in the first five minutes of the drive and sat idly spinning the purple-stained Popsicle stick between her fingers for the remainder of the ride. Nacho had driven the three of them down Menaul Boulevard, and around ten minutes later, he had pulled into the parking lot for, of all places, Tampico Furniture. Jade looked at the nearly empty parking lot and the Tampico warehouse before she looked to Nacho with a raised eyebrow. She held the look long enough to earn a glance from Nacho as he drove around the building and to the back where the loading and furniture pick up docks were.

“Okay,” Jade nodded as Nacho parked his van at the back of the building near some loading and pickup docks. “You drove us to a furniture store.”

“Yeah,” Nacho looked over to her in the passenger seat as he pulled the keys out of the van’s ignition. “Sharp eyes,” he added sarcastically.

“This isn’t exactly what I meant when I said we could help out,” Jade tried not to smile as she looked from the docks and Tampico workers back to Nacho. “But we’ll take it.”

Nacho shook his head at her sarcasm before opening his door. “You’re meeting your supplier,” he said truthfully.

“You’re not the supplier?” Jade asked, but he didn’t answer her as he closed the door behind him.

“Can you not antagonize him?” Corey spoke up quickly, speaking for the first time since getting into Nacho’s van, and Jade looked back to him. “Please?” he stressed.

“I’m not antagonizing him,” Jade told him as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “He’s not that bad, okay? Stop acting like he’s going to shoot us any second.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Nacho’s nice to you, he probably wouldn’t shoot you at all,” Joel added.

“He’s not nice to me,” Jade argued, but couldn’t say anything further as Nacho opened the passenger door for her, and she looked away from Corey and Joel in the back. “Oh, thanks,” she told him and quickly got out of his van. He was silent, closing the door behind her as Joel and Corey took the initiative to let themselves out of the back doors of the van.

“Let’s go,” Nacho told them as they climbed out, nodding towards one of the open docks. He turned around and headed for that dock, but Jade waited for Corey and Joel before following him.

Jade followed Nacho first, nodding for Corey and Joel to come along as well, and they hesitantly did. Nacho had led them to an open dock and quickly climbed his way up the ledge that was maybe four feet tall like he had done this a thousand times before. He did stop once he was on top of the dock, bending down and offering Jade, who was right behind him, a hand to pull herself up with.

“Thanks,” she told him quietly and he nodded. Nacho didn’t stick around to help Corey or Joel up. Instead, he started in a direction towards some back offices. Instead of following, Jade turned around and reached down to Corey to help him up. Once he was on the ledge with her, they both bent down to pull Joel up.

“What the hell are we doing here?” Corey asked her quietly before Jade could turn around and follow Nacho again.

“He didn’t explain anything to me, I know as much as you,” Jade whispered back quickly, letting go of Joel’s hand once he was stable. She turned around and made her way towards where Nacho had wandered off.

“So, wait, you just willy nilly agreed to deal m—”

“Shh!” Jade spun around again, stopping Joel before looking at the workers on the dock who seemed to be paying them no mind. She wasn’t sure if they had any idea why the three of them were brought to the furniture store by Nacho, or if they even cared, but figured it would be best kept unsaid anyways.

“Oh… right,” Joel seemed to realize what he was saying as well, before looking around the warehouse at the Tampico workers. Jade turned around then, and once again lead them towards where Nacho had headed. She found him waiting by an open door leading to an office, and inside she could see a desk and a couple of chairs in front of a row of file cabinets and a large floor safe.

“Wait in here,” he told the three teenagers as they walked into the office, and Nacho closed the door behind them.

After the door closed with a soft click, the three of them were left in silence. Jade was the first to move from her spot, crossing her arms as she glanced around the office before moving towards the blinds covering a window on one of the four walls.

“So, like…” Corey started after Jade had moved, making his own way to one of the chairs in front of the desk. “None of us have any idea what’s going on then? Nacho didn’t tell you anything?” he asked as he sat down, and Joel decided to join him, sitting in the other chair.

“Just that he needed us at five,” Jade answered, peeking through the blinds to the sales floor of Tampico Furniture. “That’s it,” Jade looked away from the shades then and made her way to the last chair in the room, the comfy looking office chair behind the desk. When she leaned back in the chair, she spotted a ball made from rubber bands and picked it up, stealing two of them.

“Can you guys both please try to calm down? He’s not gonna kill us, why would he take us to a furniture store if he was gonna kill us?” she asked them while sectioning her long hair over her shoulders.

“Doesn’t mean we won’t end up in jail by the end of the night,” Joel sighed. “Jesus, my dad is going to kill me.”

“We’re not going to jail, don’t stress,” Jade tried to reassure him as she started messily, braiding one of the sections of her hair into a low pigtail. When she was done, Jade tied it off with one of the rubber bands.

“What are we supposed to do though? Ask random people if they want to buy some crank?” Corey asked her. “Someone’s going to call the cops, or worse, they'll actually be a cop.”

“There’s gotta be a way to do this without getting arrested. You know that right?” Jade teased him with a smile, moving to her second section of dirty blonde hair. “They aren’t dumb. Chances of us talking skyrocket if we get thrown in jail, and that’s what caused this in the first place,” she added, seemingly easing Corey and Joel’s minds. Or so she thought.

“Mules then? Are we not dealing? Maybe?” Joel asked, and Jade paused to think, halfway through her second messy braid. Thinking about it, Nacho had never used the word “dealer.” That was her own term.

“Uh…” Jade started, wondering if Joel was right when the office door opened. All three of them turned to look and Jade’s heart sank when she recognized the newcomer as the other man at the power plant with Nacho. His beard and ponytail were unmistakable.

He stopped abruptly, half inside the room, as if he weren’t expecting anyone to be inside. Silently, he looked at Corey, then Jade, and then to Joel, who he had held at gunpoint. After a tense silence between them all, he turned around, slamming the office door shut, making Joel jump in his seat. Through the closed door, Jade could hear the man yell, “Nacho!”

“What the hell was that?” Corey quickly turned back to face Jade.

“Oh, holy shit, we’re gonna die,” Joel blurted out, immediately panicking again.

“No. No, we aren’t,” Jade quickly tied off her second braid before standing up from the office chair and quickly making her way to the door.

“Where are you going? Jade?” Corey turned in his seat to follow her with his eyes.

She didn’t respond to him; instead, she opened the door and poked her head out of the office, surveying the warehouse to see if she could spot the guy who had just slammed the door, or Nacho himself. Surprisingly, she found them both in the warehouse with another man, a Tampico employee by the looks of his uniform.

“Jade!” Corey regathered her attention and she looked back at him.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” she said, intending to find out exactly what was going on, for the sake of their sanity.

“He said to wait in here,” Joel protested as Corey got out of his seat to try and stop Jade, but she was already out of the office, walking over to the three men.

Since Nacho’s back was to her, the other two noticed Jade approaching first, causing him to turn around. “I told you to wait…” he started, pointing back the way she had come as she walked up to him before his eyes looked to her braids in confusion.

“I stole some rubber bands,” Jade admitted, crossing her arms over her band tee, and almost immediately, Nacho smirked.

“I left you alone for five minutes, and you’re already stealing things?” he asked her sarcastically, and she couldn’t help but smile back.

“Oh no,” she added with her own sarcasm, “I stole two rubber bands. The world is ending.”

“¿Lo dice en serio?” the bearded man asked Nacho, but Jade didn’t understand what he said. Nacho quickly lost his smile, looking to him, and then to The Tampico employee who had only sighed in response to the Spanish.

“This is Carlos, remember?” he asked Jade, motioning to the bearded man.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

“And this is Domingo,” Nacho motioned to the Tampico employee. Jade looked down at his name tag, which confirmed what Nacho was saying.

“Oh neat,” she smiled regardless, looking back to the man’s unenthused face, “I don’t have a cool name like that.”

“Esta es Jade. Y esos son sus perdedores, Corey y Joel,” Nacho added after her, and all she caught was her name, along with Corey and Joel’s. She looked behind her towards the office where they both stood, staring at the four of them. Nacho did the same and waved them over. Afraid they might not come, Jade repeated the gesture for herself.

“¿Sus perdedores?” Domingo asked, and Jade looked back to him, but he was still only addressing Nacho in Spanish.

Instead of responding, Nacho looked back to Jade before pointing to a nearby plastic-wrapped couch. “Sit down,” he told her, and she did as she was told. Without direction, Corey sat next to her, and Joel sat on the other end of the couch. It was very obvious to Jade that the two men, Domingo and Carlos, weren’t happy that Nacho had brought them there.

“¿Nacho, que haces? ¿Qué hacen aquí?” Domingo asked, his arms crossing over his chest.

“Vio una cara bonita y perdió su maldita cabeza,” the other man, Carlos, stated, taking a seat on a nearby stack of crushed cardboard boxes.

“Estoy tratando de ayudarte,” Nacho looked like he ignored whatever was said. Whatever Nacho told Domingo only seemed to upset him more.

“¿En serio? ¿Me estás ayudando dándome niños?” Domingo asked Nacho in Spanish, almost sounding angry.

“Era eso o matarlos. Eso es demasiado trabajo para lo que vale.”

“Estoy en desacuerdo,” Carlos added in”, speaking up for the first time since Nacho and Domingo had started arguing. “Vamos a dispararles y arrojar sus cuerpos al desierto.”

“Dispararles? De Verdad? ¿No te dieron otra opción?” Domingo asked, looking between Carlos and Nacho.

“Ellos interrumpieron un trato. Si Tuco se entera, estamos jodidos,” Nacho spoke next. Jade, behind herself, heard Corey sigh. 

“What do you think they’re saying?” Jade looked at her boyfriend, Corey, and then Joel next to him, turning away from where Nacho, Carlos, and Domingo were speaking, or arguing, in Spanish.

“I don’t know but it’s probably not good for us,” Joel sighed, looking from the two and over to Jade.

“This whole thing isn’t good for us,” Corey sighed from between them. He had been moping since they had arrived at the furniture store.

Jade decided not to respond to Corey and instead offered, “I can find out?”

“Find out how?” Joel questioned her.

“Yeah, none of us speak Spanish,” Corey agreed. “I doubt they’ll stop and translate everything for us.”

“Watch,” Jade smirked before turning around in her seat again to face Nacho and Domingo again. “Hey, uh…” she spoke up, pausing to make sure she remembered the sentence correctly. “¿Dónde está el baño?” If middle school Spanish had ever failed her, it wasn’t at that moment. Nacho looked less surprised than Domingo, who’s face completely fell into a look of shock. Still, it let Jade know that whatever was being said, they didn’t want her, Corey, and Joel to understand.

Where Carlos was sat behind them he furrowed his eyebrows, looking to Jade before turning to Nacho. “¿Ella habla español?”

Nacho, staying silent, looked to her for an answer, Jade recognizing at least that much Spanish to know Carlos was asking him if she spoke Spanish. In response, she only smiled before turning to her friends. “Yeah, whatever it was, it’s bad,” she told Corey and Joel, who looked mortified that she had interrupted Nacho and Domingo’s conversation.

“Uh, el uh...” Domingo started, actually answering Jade, “El baño—”

“¿Yo prestas, uh, un lápiz?” Jade cut him off, revealing her façade so Domingo would stop looking like he’d have a heart attack.

To try and hide the smile growing on his lips, Nacho turned around and ran a hand down his face, pacing a few steps before looking to Carlos. “¿Suena como si ella pudiera hablar español? Ban-yo,” he laughed, and Carlos shook his head, keeping his frown as he looked to Domingo.

“Ella te engañó, ese,” he told Domingo, who crossed his arms and looked back to Jade on the plastic-covered couch.

“¿Qué?” she asked the three men as if she could understand them.

“That was good,” Nacho finally said in English, almost sounding like his compliment was genuine.

“Well, you’re all just having this conversation, and we’re sitting here freaking out—”

“Jade,” Corey tried stopping her, tugging on her hand so she’d look back to him. Silently he shook his head “no,” his way of telling her to drop it.

Instead of heeding him, she turned back around and said, “It’s not cool.”

Nacho, Domingo, and Carlos all remained silent, with a similar, serious-looking expression on their faces. Nacho looked away from her after a moment to Carlos and then Domingo. “¿Podemos hacer esto ahora?”

“Okay,” Domingo answered whatever Nacho’s question was with a sigh.

“Lleva a Jade contigo,” Nacho then nodded to Carlos, who stood up from the box he was sitting on.

“C’mon, pseudo-Spanish,” he spoke to Jade as he passed, making his way towards the docks in the back of the warehouse area. She stood up quickly from the plastic-covered couch, but so did Corey and Joel. “Uh-uh,” Carlos stopped suddenly, pointing at the sofa for them to sit back down. “Not you, just her.”

“Just me?” Jade asked Carlos as Nacho came to stand next to her.

“That a problem?” Nacho asked her before addressing Corey, and Joel’s confused looks himself. “You’ll go with Gonzo and No-Doze, we’re still waiting on them.”

“Okay, cool,” Corey said quickly, sitting back down, and Joel followed his example. Both of them looked exponentially more worried than before, and Jade herself even felt her gut twist.

“Really?” she asked him as he followed Carlos towards the docks.

“You think I’m going to let a group of kids run around Albuquerque with pockets full of crank?” Nacho smirked at her, and she began following him.

“Excuse me, we’re all capable adults,” she argued as she crossed her arms.

“You were stressing the fact that you were all teenagers about a week ago,” Nacho shrugged. Jade remembered that night at the power plant that she was still desperately trying to forget.

“It’s all relative,” she answered him as they met up with Carlos who was waiting for them at an open dock door. “What’s up?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as Nacho stopped as well. By that time, the three of them were out of view from Corey, Joel, and Domingo.

“Put these away,” Nacho told her, and she watched him pull a pill bottle out of his pants pocket. She quickly stuffed them into her own jeans pocket without looking at the label, but she was able to tell it wasn’t a prescription bottle, and that it was full of pills. “That doesn’t exist outside of myself, Carlos, and Domingo. Do you understand?”

Jade nodded immediately, answering, “Yes,” when she saw how suddenly serious he had become.

“Don’t talk about it, don’t mention it to your boyfriend or friend. This is just you,” Nacho explained, keeping his voice low and his eyes locked on hers.

“Okay,” Jade said again with a nod, trying to ignore the gut feeling she had that this wasn’t a good thing.

“I’m trusting you with this.” There it was, that opportunity for Nacho's trust that Jade had been looking for.

“Don’t worry about it, no one will know,” Jade forced a smile and Nacho nodded, taking a step back from her.

“I’ll see you later tonight,” he told her, and Jade looked to Carlos, who still looked less than enthused about taking Jade with him wherever they were going.

Without a word, Carlos jumped down from the dock, and Jade took that as a cue to follow him. Jade didn’t feel as confident just jumping off the ledge, and short of just sitting down and scooting herself off, Nacho spoke up behind her.

“Ayudarla,” Nacho shook his head, and Carlos, instead of just watching her struggle, walked back to the ledge of the dock and offered silently to help Jade down.

“Thank you,” she told him, taking his hand and using it to keep her balance as she hopped down. “Be nice to them, okay?” she looked back up at Nacho once she was down.

Nacho looked annoyed, his jaw tensing with her request, but he answered with a quick, “Fine.” He walked away after without as much as a glance back.

“Are you coming or not?” Jade heard Carlos behind her and quickly turned around to follow Carlos to wherever he was leading her. They didn’t walk far; next to Nacho’s old van, Jade could see a parked Pontiac Firebird. Carlos, without a word to her, walked around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s door, and she assumed she was supposed to get in as well, opening the passenger door for herself.

“So,” she started as she searched for the seat belt, after closing the door behind herself. Carlos hadn’t had time to put the keys in the ignition, and when she looked over to him, he was half glaring at her. “This… thing that I’m not allowed to talk about?” She started, hoping that Carlos wouldn’t get upset that she was bringing the pills up immediately after Nacho told her not to.

“What about them?” Carlos asked her.

“What am I doing with them?”

Carlos started his car then, the radio coming on loudly with some rap song Jade was unfamiliar with. “You’re selling them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “¿Lo dice en serio?” — Are you serious?
> 
> “Esta es Jade. Y esos son sus perdedores, Corey y Joel.” — This is Jade. And those are her losers, Corey and Joel.
> 
> “Sus perdedores?” — Her losers?
> 
> “¿Nacho, que haces? ¿Qué hacen aquí?” — Nacho, what are you doing? What are they doing here?
> 
> “Vio una cara bonita y perdió su maldita cabeza.” — He saw a pretty face and lost his damn head.
> 
> “Estoy tratando de ayudarte.” — I’m trying to help you.
> 
> “¿En serio? ¿Me estás ayudando dándome niños?” — Are you serious? You’re helping me by giving me kids?
> 
> “Era eso o matarlos. Eso es demasiado trabajo para lo que vale.” — It was that or kill them. That’s too much work for what it's worth.
> 
> “No estoy en acuerdo. Vamos a dispararles y arrojar sus cuerpos al desierto.” — I disagree. Let’s just shoot them and go dump their bodies in the desert.
> 
> “¿Dispararles? ¿De Verdad? ¿No te dieron otra opción?” — Shoot them? Really? They gave you no other option?
> 
> “Ellos interrumpieron un trato. Si Tuco se entera, estamos jodidos.” — They interrupted a deal. If Tuco finds out we’re screwed.
> 
> “¿Dónde está el baño?” — Where is the bathroom?
> 
> “¿Ella habla español?” — She speaks Spanish?
> 
> “¿Yo prestas, uh, un lápiz?” — (Incorrect) Can I have a pencil?
> 
> “¿Suena como si ella pudiera hablar español? Ban-yo.” — Does it sound like she speaks Spanish? (imitating Jade’s misprnunciation) Ban-yo.
> 
> “Ella te engañó, ese.” — She tricked you, ese.
> 
> “¿Podemos hacer esto ahora?” — Can we do this?
> 
> “Lleva a Jade contigo.” — Take Jade with you.
> 
> “Ayudala.” — Help her.
> 
> I'm sorry there's so much Spanish in this one but, like... plot reasons :( if it wasn't already obvious Carlos and Nacho were planning on killing Jade, Corey, and Joel before the night Jade spent with Nacho.
> 
> Also, huge thanks to my boyfriend for being my beta on this chapter and editing this ridiculous amount of Spanish. He taught me how to type accents and the upside-down question marks but there is most likely still grammatical errors so...
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter even though its a week late. I've got Chapter 4 typed out, it just needs some editing and a good beta read from my boyfriend, so expect it next Saturday.


	4. L.A. Looks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nacho is impressed with how well Jade is adjusting and learns more about her and Corey’s relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Health's song "L.A. Looks".
> 
> Grammarly estimates this chapter will take about 25 and a half minutes to read and it is about 15 novel pages in length.
> 
> There's no content warning for this chapter, but the spoiler warning for season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect.
> 
> As always the Spanish is translated in the endnotes after the chapter.

After a long night, Carlos had eventually warmed up to her. Jade had to use the same persistence she had with Nacho that night they counted out eight balls. Carlos wasn’t quite as receptive, but he wasn’t scowling at her every second she was in his car now.

“Carlos, seriously, are you doing this on purpose?” Jade asked, slumped on the passenger side of the bench seat of his El Camino.

“¿Qué?” Carlos asked her, looking over his shoulder since he had his right hand propped up on the steering wheel of his car.

“Kay?” Jade asked him before understanding that it was Spanish he had responded with. “Oh. You’re, like, purposely driving past all these restaurants. Like, we’ve driven past every fast food place in Albuquerque.”

“Really?” Carlos asked her. “You’re hungry?”

“I left my house at four and haven’t eaten since,” Jade told him with a straight face, deciding not to include the grape Popsicle Joel’s mother had given her. “That was twelve hours ago,” she added to Carlos’ silence, and she pointed to the digital clock on his stereo system. “Carlos!” she yelled at him after a minute of his silence and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“What? What do you want? You want me to take you to get food?” Carlos asked her with the remnants of a smile on his face.

“Buy me food, you have cash,” Jade crossed her arms, mentioning the crapload of cash they had taken from meth heads and pill addicts that night.

“Buy you food?” Carlos questioned.

“Buy me food or I’ll tell Nacho you starved me,” Jade falsely threatened and again, Carlos laughed at her.

“I’m not babysitting you. I don’t have to feed you,” Carlos argued back.

“When did you eat? You’re not starving too?” Jade tried another approach.

“I ate when I left you at the park,” Carlos admitted and Jade faked a gasp. 

“You ate food and didn’t bring me anything?” Jade asked, before dramatically adding, “And now you’re starving me?”

“Fine. You want food? Fine,” Carlos gave in, making a quick and illegal U-turn on the empty street they were on to drive back to the McDonald’s they had just passed. He pulled into the empty drive-thru before fishing his wallet out of his pocket and pulling out a twenty-dollar bill, instead of having Jade use whatever cash she still had on her.

“You order,” he handed the bill to her before shoving his wallet back into his pocket.

“I can use the whole thing?” Jade asked him but Carlos couldn’t answer her before they were greeted at the speaker.

“Can I help you?” an annoyed sounding voice cracked on the old speaker.

“Hi, yeah, uh,” Jade decided that, instead of trying to speak past Carlos and out the driver’s window, that she would lean over him and place her head and shoulders out the window.

“Really?” Carlos asked her again but Jade didn’t bother looking back to him or answering.

“Okay, so you’re not serving breakfast right now, right?” Jade instead asked the speaker, hearing it crack with the employee’s response.

“Right.”

“Cool, so,” Jade started, trying to adjust her position slightly as she felt the rubber lip of the El Camino’s window dig uncomfortably into her forearms. “If I only have a twenty-dollar bill, how many one dollar burgers can I get?” she asked and ignored Carlos’ sigh.

“Uh…” the employee started before saying, “eighteen after tax.”

“Cool, can I have eighteen?” Jade asked with a smile.

“You aren’t going to eat eighteen burgers,” Carlos spoke up but Jade didn’t even look back at him.

“You want… eighteen cheeseburgers?” the employee asked and Jade confirmed.

“Yep.”

“… Second window,” it took a moment for Jade to get a response.

“Okay, thank you!” she said and pulled herself back into Carlos’ El Camino.

“Are you serious?” Carlos asked her, “You aren’t gonna eat eighteen cheeseburgers.”

“Yeah, so?” Jade asked and instead of arguing, Carlos shook his head and drove around the building to the second window. He silently asked for the twenty he had given her back so he could pay, but instead Jade crawled over him again, sticking her head and shoulders out of the window.

“Hi,” she greeted the guy with a bright smile as he opened the drive-thru window.

“Uh, hey,” his annoyed look slipped completely off his face as he saw her hanging out of Carlos’ window.

“Here you go,” she kept her smile, handing him the twenty-dollar bill.

“Cool,” the cashier accepted the bill, “One sec, okay?” he smiled back at her before closing the window. Instead of opening the register, however, the employee turned around and shouted, “Yo, never mind. She’s hot!”

“Wow,” Jade said to herself, trying not to laugh. She figured the employee didn’t know she could hear him still with the window closed.

“Did he just say ‘yo, never mind, she’s hot’?” Carlos asked and Jade looked back to him through the open driver side window.

“I don’t think he knows we heard,” she told Carlos.

Jade looked back to the employee when she heard the drive-thru window slide open again, and found the guy smiling at her. “Its gonna be a minute for the burgers,” he told her as he handed back the twenty-dollar bill she had given him.

“What, its gonna be a minute so they’re free?” Jade questioned him, immediately returning his smile as she quirked an eyebrow.

“You could say that,” he replied and she took the bill back from him before handing it back to Carlos. He looked about as surprised as Jade felt, but she was doing a good job as remaining indifferent about the free food. “Do you two want something to drink?” he asked then as Jade looked back to him in the open window.

“Yeah sure—” Jade started before Carlos spoke up.

“Dr. Pepper,” he told the guy quickly and Jade nodded.

“Yeah, that and can you like, mix Hi-C and Sprite?” she asked the employee.

“Sure thing,” he stepped back from the window to make the two drinks.

When it automatically slid closed again, she heard Carlos ask her quietly, “What are you playing at?”

“He’s probably gonna ask for my number,” she shrugged, looking back at him from where she was hanging out of his El Camino.

“You’re in a car with another dude and he’s giving you twenty dollars of free shit just to get your number?” Carlos asked her but Jade couldn’t give a response before the employee came back.

“Here you go,” he handed her the two sodas and a couple of straws. Jade took them and withdrew into the car for a moment. Carlos pulled a drink tray out from beneath his stereo. 

“Thanks,” Jade told him quickly, placing the two soda cups inside before crawling back over him to lean out the window. “So how’s your night going?”

“It’s alright. Slow,” he told her, leaning out of his own window slightly while she made small talk. “Night shifts are usually pretty relaxed.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Jade laughed as if whatever he sad was funny. “Do you always work nights?”

“Yeah— well not every day,” the guy caught himself. “It’s part-time, I have a few days off. Are you always out this late?”

“Always,” she quickly lied, keeping her smile so the guy would ask the question she knew was coming next.

“Cool. We should hang out then.”

“For sure,” Jade reinforced but was inwardly hoping that the burgers would be done soon so she and Carlos could get out of there. She watched the guy press a button on his receipt printer, ejecting a length of blank paper before he did something she hadn’t expected. Instead of asking for her number, he wrote down his own before handing the piece of paper over to her.

“Thanks,” she told him, looking to his number with the name Danny written blow in an unexpectedly neat script. She folded the paper in half but kept it in her hand, looking back up to Danny in the drive-through window. Behind him, she saw another McDonald’s employee walk into view with several bags in his arms.

“Hey,” he pushed Danny out of the way and began to hand her the bags.

“Thank you,” Jade smiled at him instead, trying to pass the bags through the El Camino’s open window to Carlos. She noticed that a box of fries had also been thrown in along with the burgers. “You guys are seriously great,” she added after getting the bags of food into the car and Danny’s phone number into her jeans pocket.

“You’re welcome,” the new guy smiled before he was pushed out of the window by Danny.

“Call me later, okay?” he asked her and Jade nodded in false reassurance as she withdrew into Carlos’ car.

“Sure thing,” she told him as Carlos began rolling up his window.

“That was evil, you know that?” Carlos asked her, looking over after his window was fully closed and Jade lost her smile.

“How was that evil?” Jade asked him.

“That perdedor was so into you,” he laughed.

“Shut up, that was all his fault. I gave him the money,” Jade pointed out, reaching into one of the paper bags for a cheeseburger.

“So what though, you knew this would happen?” Carlos asked her, finally driving out of the empty drive-thru.

“What would happen?” Jade asked, trying not to talk with her mouth full of freshly made cheeseburgers.

“That those guys would give you free shit after making them cook you eighteen cheeseburgers,” Carlos explained, motioning to their drinks and the fries he had pulled out of another bag and was currently eating.

“Hey, it pays off to smile and be friendly,” Jade laughed at his words.

“Or it pays off to be a white chick,” Carlos suggested, turning back to the road.

“Not even. It doesn’t make a difference that I’m white or a chick.”

“Okay, so if I pulled that stunt right now, that cashier would yell ‘yo, he’s hot’ and give me free shit?” Carlos asked.

Jade looked at him for a moment, understanding what he was getting at, before deciding on a reply. “Doesn’t work if you have a beard. That’s why I shave mine.” She managed not to laugh until Carlos did.

“Oh, the keys to life have been given to me. I just need to shave,” he joked and Jade shook her head.

“Shut up. Where are you taking me?” she asked as they turned off the main street and into a neighborhood.

“We’re picking up Arturo and then heading back to Tampico.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Jade admitted, wondering if this Arturo had been mentioned to her before, either by Carlos himself or Nacho.

“You’ll meet him right now,” Carlos told her, pulling to the side of the neighborhood street in front of a duplex home before pulling out his cell phone. Jade watched him silently, finishing off her first cheeseburger as Carlos dialed a number and put his phone to his ear.

“Estamos afuera,” he said briefly, before hanging up again. A few moments later he and Jade watched a man come out of one of the duplex doors, locking it behind him before making his way towards Carlos’ El Camino. His confident gait slowed as he noticed Jade sitting in the car with Carlos and he looked through the open passenger window, first at her and then at Carlos.

“¿Esta es tu novia?” he asked Carlos with a confused look. Jade also looked from the man, who she figured was Arturo, to Carlos.

She watched Carlos shake his head, “No. Ella es la novia de Nacho.”

“What?” Jade asked, recognizing Nacho’s name but neither men verbally responded. Instead, Arturo opened the passenger door and Jade realized that she needed to move over for him.

“¿Nacho le gustan los gringos?” Arturo asked as Jade moved closer to Carlos on the bench seat, having to place the several fast food bags in her lap. Catching the term “gringo”, Jade looked back go Arturo with a frown.

“Hey,” Arturo finally greeted her when Carlos’ only response was a shrug.

“What's up?” she asked back, before looking to Carlos again.

“She conned some food out of McDonald’s,” Carlos stated, pulling away from the curb.

“Want some burgers?” Jade asked Arturo, looking to her right again.

“You conned food out of McDonald’s?” Arturo asked her, his eyebrows pressing together.

“I wouldn’t say ‘conned’. I offered to pay,” Jade pulled a cheeseburger out for Arturo, handing it to him.

“How?” he accepted the burger, unwrapping it.

“Smiling and being nice,” Carlos answered for her. “That’s what she calls it.”

“Shut up, that’s what I did,” Jade laughed.

“That’s what they all call it, ese,” Arturo laughed and Jade shook her head with a sigh.

~-----~

Carlos was right, there was no way Jade could eat eighteen cheeseburgers. After her second one, she was full, despite how hungry she had felt earlier. She had managed to convince Arturo to take a second burger, and Carlos had one as well, but she still ended up carrying two paper bags full through the back of Tampico Furniture.

Jade followed Arturo and Carlos through the warehouse, and this time, instead of being led to the office, they led her out onto the dark sales floor. Near a back wall furthest from the full glass front entrance of the store, Jade could see a display of couches, oriented in a square with a few accent tables and a coffee table that was lit by two table lamps and a floor lamp. Sitting on the couches she could see Corey and Joel, as well as two other guys.

“Carlos, Arturo, what’s up?” One of the men Jade didn’t recognize greeted them. Joel, sitting in a recliner looked to his right to see them approaching, and Corey had to turn around on the couch to see them. As he did, Jade clutched the two bags of cheeseburgers to her chest, most likely squishing the burgers as she did. She moved to the back of the couch before lazily rolling over it and plopping onto her back on the couch cushions.

“Hey,” she smiled up at Corey as she landed next to him and he, surprisingly laughed at her.

“Hi,” he said as Arturo and Carlos took the more conventional route of walking around the large wrap-around style couch to sit down themselves.

“Take these,” she handed one of the bags to him before sitting up and swinging her legs off the couch so she was sitting upright next to him.

“Did you get food?” he asked as she set the other bag of cheeseburgers down in the middle of all the seats on a walnut coffee table.

“She conned some burgers out of McDonald’s,” Carlos explained, looking from Corey to the two new men.

“You can have some,” Jade added, before looking to Carlos, “You were right, I can’t eat eighteen burgers.”

“Told you,” he crossed his arms, relaxing back into the couch.

“Eighteen burgers?” the guy across from her asked, grabbing for the bag. Corey, next to her, grabbed out two of the cheeseburgers before passing the bag to his left for Joel to reach.

“Shit, you wanna roll with us next time?” the other guy asked with a laugh, “Get us some free food?”

“Nu-uh, she’s mine,” Carlos quickly argues and Jade, though she wanted to believe that he just liked her and they got along well, understood that it was more than likely in regards to the bottle of pills in her pocket.

“Whatever, you left me in a park for like five hours,” Jade blew him off.

“Alone?” one of the new guys asked and Corey shot her a look of confusion.

“Yeah, alone,” she looked to Carlos with a fake glare.

“What?” he shrugged at her, “You did good.”

“What did you say? Something like ‘pretend you have a bigger dick than everyone’,” Jade laughed, remembering when Carlos had just up and left her.

“Really?” Arturo looked over to Carlos.

“Hey, it worked,” Carlos shrugged again and Jade laughed.

“Yeah, whatever. At least I wasn’t jumped.”

The lights overhead suddenly switched on and all heads turned towards the front of the furniture store. Jade couldn’t help but smile as she saw Nacho walking towards them. He wasn’t dressed in his usual attire. Instead, he had on black Dickie’s work pants and monochrome Chuck Taylors. He had a black button-up on under his jacket, but he was sans any of his usual gold chains or snake earing.  
Domingo was behind him in his Tampico uniform, having been the one to turn the lights on for the sales floor. Both men looked to be freshly showered and ready for the day despite it being now just past five in the morning. The looks on their faces were telltale that they had just woken up.

“Oh good, we were just talking about dicks,” she said to Nacho when he got close enough and he nearly stopped in his tracks.

“What?” Nacho asked, raising his scarred eyebrow.

“Did she just call you a dick?” Carlos asked and Jade immediately laughed, followed by one of the new guys, and a snigger from Arturo.

“Yeah, she did,” Nacho stuck his hands into the pockets on his jacket before continuing to stand next to the couch she was on. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

“She grew on me. Didn’t shut up,” Carlos nodded, and Jade noted their teasing tones.

“Aw, shucks,” she added sarcastically, leaning against Corey again as she sat forward on the couch. “He’s a great babysitter by the way. Didn’t starve me or leave me alone for hours.”

“Really?” Nacho asked again, this time raising his scarred eyebrow at Carlos.

“She was fine, she’s overreacting,” Carlos responded in defense.

“Yeah, she got free food and everything,” Arturo came to his aid, nodding to the two bags still full of cheeseburgers.

“Still hasn’t explained how, though,” the other new guy added and they again looked to her for an explanation.

“I can never go back to that McDonald’s. Ever,” she told Nacho and his brow was immediately furrowed with a deep frown.

“Why?” he asked her quickly. Before she could even think of some snarky response, Carlos had beat her to it.

“Flirting with the cashier.”

“Shut up, no I wasn’t,” she said quickly, but already Corey had sighed next to her.

“Seriously?” he asked.

“No,” Jade looked to him quickly, trying to avoid a huge headache. “I wasn’t flirting with him.” She looked back to Carlos then, “I wasn’t flirting with him, I was just being nice. He did all of that himself,” she pointed to the paper bags.

“You were—” Carlos started to argue but Nacho cut him off quickly in Spanish.

“Ella está saliendo con él, no causes problemas.”

“¿Qué?” Carlos’ face completely changed, and next to him Arturo even looked confused.

“¿Seriamente? ¿Ella no está saliendo contigo?”

Nacho laughed at what Arturo had asked him, shaking his head before answering, “No.”

“What are you saying? You’re seriously doing this again?” Jade asked, looking between them, before turning to both of the new guys, “What did they say?”

One only shook his head, and when she looked to the other he lied, “I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Bull,” Jade said, before noticing that Domingo was finally joining them. “Hey, Domingo? What does ‘aye es silento—’” she started to ask before Nacho laughed at her.

“That’s not what I said at all,” he told her, keeping the smile leftover from laughing.

Jade rolled her eyes, giving up. “Whatever. There’s free burgers, but Nacho can’t have any because he’s a dick.”

“Um… thank you,” he stated, looking from the greasy burger bags on the coffee table. “Gonzo, No-Doze? Are they all good?” he turned to the two new dealers before looking to Carlos.

“The guys are, yeah,” one of them answered for them both, and both of them pulled out folded bills from their baggy pants.

“She’s still got her’s,” Carlos responded casually and Jade looked between him and Domingo, figuring she couldn’t just pull out the cash and the bottle of pills Nacho had given her. She still had the crystal baggies on her also.

“C’mon,” Nacho caught her attention again, nodding for the warehouse area of Tampico. Jade wanted to argue with him but instead, reminding herself about the promise she made about the OxyContin pills, she silently stood up and followed him to the office he had originally left her, Corey, and Joel in.

He didn’t say anything to her as he let her into the office, and he shut the door behind her when she entered. She looked to him, expecting some sort of quip or directions but he just held his hand out. Jade stuck her hands into her front pockets, grabbing up as much of the mess of dollar bills and baggies as she could. When she handed the wads to him, he had to hold out both of his hands to take them. 

“There's more?” he asked her as she stuck her hands back in her pockets. 

“Yeah,” she added, pulling out everything else besides the pill bottle. 

“Have you ever heard of folding money?” he asked her, moving to the desk in the office before dumping what he had in his hands onto the flat surface. Jade followed his lead, walking to the desk as well and setting the rest of the cash and meth down. 

“Have you ever heard of panicking because holy shit I’ve never done this before?” Jade asked him, crossing her arms as Nacho sat on the office chair behind the desk to sort out her mess. 

“Carlos was supposed to chill with you the whole night,” he told her and Jade huffed. 

“Go figure,” she told him before she took a seat across from Nacho in one of the other, less comfy looking chairs.

Amidst the cash and baggies, Nacho found a crumpled up piece of paper and Jade recognized it as the receipt paper that the cashier from McDonald’s had given her with his name and number. Funny enough, she couldn’t remember his name.

“Who gave you this?” he asked, showing her the piece of receipt paper.

“McDonald’s guy,” Jade answered and Nacho smirked at her.

“You weren’t flirting with him but still got his number?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

“Not like I asked for it, all of this was on him, not me. I was just nice,” Jade explained and Nacho tried handing her the crumpled receipt paper. “I don’t want it,” she shook her head, making no move to take the paper form him.

“Fine,” Nacho withdrew his hand before crumpling the receipt paper up and tossing it into a nearby trashcan. “He wasn’t hot or something?”

Jade actually laughed at his question, understanding it wasn’t serious. “I have a boyfriend already,” Jade pointed to the window in the office that faced the sales floor of Tampico Furniture, which still had the blinds drawn closed. “One that doesn’t work at McDonald’s.”

Nacho shook his head, keeping the smirk on his face as he looked back to the baggies and cash, trying to sort everything out. “At least Daniel had a job. Corey doesn’t.”

“Who?” Jade asked him.

“The McDonald’s guy,” Nacho quickly pointed to the trash bin where he had thrown the receipt.

“Oh, “ Jade responded, her own smile fading as she realized Nacho’s point. He was right, at least the McDonald’s guy—Daniel—had a job where Corey did nothing all day like her.

“Where are my pills?” he asked, breaking through Jade’s thoughts as he looked up from the baggies and cash, and Jade realized he was looking for them.

“What pills?” she asked him, standing up from her chair to pull the bottle out of her pocket, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she added as she handed it over.

“Cute,” he deadpanned as he took the pill bottle from her, slipping it into his leather jacket. 

“You told me they didn’t exist so…” Jade shrugged before taking a seat across from him once again. They sat in silence for a few minutes after while Nacho began counting out the cash she had given him. As always, the silence got to Jade first and she was the one to speak up.

“Sorry I called you a dick,” Jade said as Nacho counted out the cash she had pulled from her pockets. “Twice,” she added and he looked up at her.

“It’s cool. I’ve been called worse before. A lot earlier in the morning too.”

“Sounds like you have a habit of pissing people off,” Jade mused, leaning back in her chair, watching Nacho smirk before he finished counting.

“I told them you and Corey were dating,” he said randomly after straightening the bills and looking up to her.

“What?” Jade asked, her eyebrows pressing together in confusion.

“In Spanish. Ella está saliendo con él,” he repeated from earlier, but Jade still couldn’t catch the separate words. “They didn’t believe me.”

“What? That wasn’t obvious while I was sitting practically on top of him just now?”

“You don’t treat him much like a boyfriend,” Nacho told her, separating the money into three stacks.

“Whatever,” Jade looked up from the cash to his face to see him smirk.

“You did good for being left alone,” Nacho complimented her, changing the subject of their conversation.

“For five hours?” Jade added with fake spite.

“Yeah, for five hours,” Nacho agreed, standing up from the office chair behind the desk. He put one of the stacks of cash inside the floor safe behind him before closing the heavy door. After, he put the other two in separate pockets in his Dickie’s work pants.

“I’ll drive you home?” he offered her.

“I was gonna crash at Corey’s. You know, because we’re dating? And do boyfriend-girlfriend things,” Jade stood from her seat as well. She had already lied to her parents about spending the night at Tammy’s place and made sure Tammy was ready to cover for her.

“…Right,” Nacho nodded at her words. “Fine, I’ll drop you off with him and Joel.”

“Thank you, Nacho,” she told him and again he silently nodded, before leading her out of the office.

~-----~

After a week, Jade found herself getting more and more used to her new life as a drug dealer. It wasn’t exactly what she was expecting, then again, Jade didn’t know what exactly she was expecting. The people she dealt with weren’t all that bad or shady. Usually, they were just as paranoid as she was and just wanted their next high. When she did have to deal with an asshole, Carlos’ advice of “act like you’ve got a bigger dick” surprisingly helped. Other than that, dealing was really just a lot of waiting, loitering, and aimless walking.

Corey and Joel seemed to be settling into the life as well, and as far as she knew, they were spending their cash from it about as fast as Nacho was handing it to them. Corey had already bought himself a new PlayStation, TV, a new DVD player, and had told Jade in passing that he was wanting to buy himself a computer. Joel had to be more discreet with his spendings since he didn’t want his parents finding out about his new “job”. His purchases were more aesthetic while he slowly grew and swapped out his wardrobe and bought pawn shop gold chains and such.

Jade, on the other hand, had only bought herself her own baggy jeans since she was sick of almost a week straight of Charlie complaining that she was wearing his. Other than that, Jade didn’t know exactly what she wanted or what to spend the cash on. She couldn’t get herself anything she actually wanted, like her own car or something like that, since her parents would immediately flip out on her. Everything else she could want she already had at home.

The days, or rather nights, went pretty much the same as well. Nacho would pick them up (he had started picking Jade up at her house versus her walking to Corey and Joel’s apartments), take them to Tampico Furniture to give them the product, and then they’d be released to the streets of Albuquerque. It wasn’t always as long as the first night either. Most nights she’d be home by about midnight, so she was able to keep her parents from wondering what she was doing sleeping all day and leaving the house all night.

On this particular night, about a week after they had started dealing for Domingo and Nacho, it was just after midnight when Nacho had pulled into one of the parking lots at Corey and Joel’s apartments. As he pulled into a parking space, he reached into his pocket, pulling two small rolls of dollar bills out before holding them behind himself. He didn’t even look back as Corey grabbed both, handing one to Joel before they moved to the back doors of the van. Jade was used to his less than friendly antics towards the guys by now, and frankly, Corey and Joel didn’t seem to care either.

“Wait up a sec, okay?” Jade asked him, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“Sure,” he looked over to her, leaning his left arm against the door while Jade opened hers, getting out of the van along with Joel and Corey.

“If we ever get a day off we should hang out. Sitting in a shady van with you guys is cool and all but it doesn’t cut it,” Joel said as she joined them outside of the van.

“Lena’s been bugging me to hang out. You guys too?” Jade asked, looking from Joel to Corey.

“Taylor’s been hounding us, yeah,” Corey answered.

“Can you like, talk to Nacho?” Joel asked her and Jade looked back to him with her eyebrows raised.

“Me? Why?”

“He’s nice to you,” Corey crossed his arms, and Jade caught that hint of jealousy in his voice. It had been showing up more and more after Carlos had said she was flirting with that employee at McDonald’s. “He likes you.”

“Whatever,” she shrugged him and his jealousy off. “Yeah I’ll talk to him and it’ll probably backfire.

Joel sighed, “See you guys tomorrow then I guess?” he asked before adding, “Night guys.”

“Goodnight,” Jade managed to smile and wave as he left.

“Later man,” Corey told him before turning back to Jade, his voice taking on a tone of hopefulness where the jealousy had once been. “You think you can spend the night—”

“I’m gonna head home,” Jade told him, cutting him off before his sentence was finished. “I’m pretty tired.”

“Oh, cool. Okay,” Corey looked obviously upset but Jade pretended not to notice.

“Text me later,” she told him, before moving closer for a hug. It was a gesture more for him than her. Jade was growing pretty tired of his jealous attitude, especially after seeing him every day for the past week or so.

“I love you,” Corey told her and Jade quickly pulled back from their hug, trying not to recoil as hard as she actually did.

“Yep, I—” she cut herself off by quickly kissing him, “—you too.” After, Jade took a couple steps back, making sure she was out of reach before adding, “Text me later, ’kay?”

“Uh, okay. Sure,” Corey nodded and, without trying to look like she was fleeing, she quickly got into the passenger seat of Nacho’s van, manually rolling up the window before Nacho could even pull away.

“That… was really awkward,” he noted, waiting until Jade had the window rolled up before speaking and pulling the Chevy van away from the curb.

“Was it?” Jade looked over after buckling herself in, crossing her arms and fighting the urge to kick her feet up onto his dash.

“Extremely, yes,” Nacho confirmed and Jade just shrugged, turning to the passenger window instead. “You don’t love your boyfriend?”

“That obvious, huh?” Jade sighed.

“You couldn’t be more obvious,” Nacho smirked, eyes still on the road ahead.

“So what, though? Is that bad?” she asked, looking over to Nacho again but her face fell, realizing who she was talking to. “Know what? No. We aren’t talking about this.”

“Okay,” Nacho seemed willing to drop the subject then and there. Despite that and the fact that they had met a little over two weeks ago, and he had been threatening her for the better part of those two weeks, Jade still actually wanted to talk about it. She never really talked about it before with anyone.

“But like, is it really that bad?”

“I thought we weren’t talking about this?” Nacho questioned her instead of answering.

“I’m allowed to date someone without loving them,” Jade was fully facing Nacho now, twisted around in her seat.

“It still helps to at least like them,” Nacho stated after a moment, deciding to indulge her.

“I do like him,” Jade scoffed.

“Really?” Nacho rose his scarred eyebrow, glancing at her again from the road. “The look of physical pain you had before you jumped into my van tells me otherwise.”

“Bullshit,” Jade rolled her eyes. “Physical pain my ass. I do like him okay? He’s just overbearing.” She sat back in her seat then, slouching down with her arms still crossed.

“Why are you dating him then?”

“What? Are you saying to just dump him? I can’t, he’s my friend.”

“You’re dating your friend?” Nacho chuckled at her predicament and it didn’t help Jade’s worsening mood. “And you didn’t see how this was going to turn out?”

“Yeah, so?” Jade shrugged. “It’s not just him, all guys get weird and clingy and overbearing and jealous, not just him.”

“All guys? Every single one? You say that like you’ve got experience.”

“Experience?” Jade laughed, finding it funny how shocked Nacho was. “Yeah, sure.”

“How many guys have you dated?” Nacho looked to her again, more than just a glance now that they were stopped at a red light and she met his gaze.

“I dunno, like a dozen?” she didn’t bother actually counting but was confident the number was close to true.

“How old are you, again?” he asked next and Jade was caught off guard.

“Why?” she didn’t answer him, but Nacho still explained.

“You’re telling me you’ve had twelve boyfriends,” he started explaining, “and all of these relationships have ended because they got clingy, overbearing, and jealous?” he counted the three traits on his fingers.

“…Yeah,” Jade answered, unsure of where he was going with their discussion.

“What are you doing to these poor guys?”

“What am I doing? Nothing, I just told you—”

“You told me that you’ve ruined twelve guys’ self-esteem so bad that they became clingy, jealous, babies,” Nacho cut her off.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t do anything. It’s them, the guys! Guys are all… I dunno. Guys suck,” Jade shrugged, losing her animation as the light turned green and Nacho faced the road again.

“Thanks,” he replied in sarcasm and Jade rolled her eyes again.

“Not you, just like… guys,” she failed to explain.

“Maybe you should start dating chicks?” Nacho suggested but didn’t have much weight behind it.

“Wonderful advice. ‘Date chicks’. Thanks, you damn Albuquerque Casanova.”

“Really?” Nacho laughed at her.

“You know everything about dating,” Jade rolled her eyes with her sarcasm before adding, “You’re probably dating like three people at once.”

“I don’t date,” Nacho told her, keeping his smile. He was obviously amused at this point.

“What?” Jade asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she watched his face for any different expression. The only change was the slow loss of his smile.

“I do not date,” he explained shortly.

“You said that already, what does that mean? That sounds lonely,” Jade argued and Nacho shook his head, his smile completely faded as he glanced over at her briefly.

“Its the exact opposite of lonely. I can do whatever I want and I can see whoever I want. And I can sleep with whoever I want, don’t look at me like that.”

Jade had her eyebrow raised at him for his expansion on what he meant by he “didn’t date”. When he was finished she said, briefly, “Whore.”

“I’m a whore?” Nacho’s smile was back, along with more laughter. “I’m the whore and you’re the kid who's already had a dozen boyfriends?”

“Boyfriends! Not one night stands!” Jade quickly defended herself, crossing her arms. “Just because I’ve dated that many guys doesn’t mean I’ve slept with them all either.” He didn’t respond to that immediately and Jade turned forward in her seat, sighing. This may have been a mistake, trying to talk to Nacho about something other than drugs.

“You want to know what I really think?” Nacho laughed at her again and Jade only huffed in response. “You get bored.”

“I get bored? Really?”

“You start dating a guy, and at first it’s great. Then you start getting bored with him and he doesn’t understand why. He gets clingy and jealous and you get weirded out,” Nacho explained and it made too much sense for Jade to just accept that as the answer for why all her boyfriends turned into jealous wrecks.

“I like how you’re still trying to pin the blame for this on me,” she told him, glancing over from the front window to see Nacho smiling.

“Well there’s that, and you need to start dating people in your league.”

“What does that even mean?” Jade kept her slumped position in her seat but turned her head fully towards Nacho now.

“You think that clown you’re with is attractive?” Nacho asked her honestly, sounding doubtful and Jade herself didn’t know exactly how to respond besides laughing.

“That has nothing to do with it,” she shook her head, “Why would you even ask that? Don’t even answer, we’re done talking about this.”

“For real this time?” Nacho asked her, after the drive over to her neighborhood was nearly complete.

Jade stayed quiet for a moment as Nacho turned off the main road, glancing quickly to her as he did. “You think I should break up with him because he’s not as attractive as he could be and because I’m bored with him?”

“I think you should break up with him because what I saw back there was pathetic,” Nacho told her straight, as he had been for their whole conversation.

“That’s dumb,” she shook her head. “I’m not breaking up with him.”

“Okay, then don’t. You want me to drop you off closer?” Nacho stopped at a cross street down the road from her home.

“Really? You’re kicking me out?” Jade joked, and she unbuckled her seatbelt. “Nah, this is okay. It’s not far.” She leaned forward, opening up his glove box to grab out her house keys and her wallet, and when she leaned back after closing the box, Nacho was holding out a small roll of fifty dollar bills, about the width of a Chapstick tube and wrapped in a rubber band.

“We’re doing this again, right?” she asked, accepting the cash, pocketing it with everything else.

“You really want to keep going after this week?” Nacho asked her, his eyebrow raised again as he dropped his hands into his lap from the steering wheel.

“What, are we off the hook now?” Jade asked, having expected this to take longer than a week.

“You are,” he broke his eye contact with her, looking around the neighborhood as if he were making sure no one was watching them.

“I am?” Jade asked him, turning in her seat, finding it much easier to do without a seatbelt around her chest. “Not Corey or Joel? Just me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Nacho barely had time to finish saying that one word before she questioned him. “What did I do differently?”

“I don’t know,” Nacho looked back to her. “Maybe staying up with me, making fun of my name, and counting eights helped. I don’t know. I just know that I trust you, and not them,” Nacho explained with his hands, shrugging for emphasis.

“You told me that wouldn’t work, that you couldn’t just trust me from that,” Jade accused and Nacho shrugged again.

“Changed my mind.”

“Well, what about the guys?”

“I don’t like them,” Nacho admitted and Jade huffed, sitting back proper in her seat.

She could have tried arguing further, or telling Nacho that he wasn’t making sense. She was just as much involved, if not more than Corey and Joel. “Fine, she said instead, before opening the passenger door to let herself out of Nacho’s van. “I’m dealing as long as they have to,” she turned around and told Nacho after she stepped out onto the street.

“You’re sure?” he asked and she nodded.

“Yep. Let me know when you need me next,” she said before closing the van door and making her way towards her home down the street, not bothering to look back at Nacho or his van.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Perdedor” — Loser
> 
> “Estamos afuera.” — We’re outside.
> 
> “¿Esta es tu novia?” - Is this your girlfriend?
> 
> “No. Ella es la novia de Nacho.” — No, she’s Nacho’s girlfriend.
> 
> “¿Nacho le gustan los gringos?” — Nacho is into gringos?
> 
> “Ella está saliendo con él, no causes problemas.” — She is dating him, don’t cause problems.
> 
> “¿Qué?” — What?
> 
> “¿Seriamente? ¿Ella no está saliendo contigo?” — Seriously? She's not dating you?
> 
> That last scene with Nacho and Jade is probably one of my favorites that I've written so far 💕. Anyways, thanks again to my boyfriend for helping beta read and check my terrible Spanish. And thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	5. Oblivion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade finds herself in trouble while dealing at a college party. Worried something may have happened to her, Nacho offers to keep an eye on Jade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Grimes' song "Oblivion".
> 
> This chapter is about 19 novel pages (we're officially over 50 novel pages!) and Grammarly estimates it will take about 33 minutes to read.
> 
> Spoiler warning for season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There's also a warning for the second scene, which contains several allusions to date rape. There's no... "physical act" of rape but it made my boyfriend uncomfortable and I had to get pretty disconnected to write it so... proceed with caution, please.
> 
> No Spanish in this chapter 😃

“Eighty dollars for one fucking pill? Seriously?”

“Its name brand and eighty milligrams. It's not the shit you’re used to taking,” Jade argued with the two guys in front of her. The problem with Nacho having her deal at a college party was that most of these kids were broke. The two guys, probably younger than Jade herself, glanced between each other and she took the chance to try and push them. “Look, buy one for sixty, cut it in half, and both of you will still get high as fuck,” she shrugged with a smile. “Then when you realize I’m not ripping you off and this shit is worth eighty dollars come find me and I’ll sell you more.”

Dealing wasn't as straight forward as Carlos had explained to her. It wasn’t just about being pushy and showing people she “had a bigger dick” than them. It helped when she could recognize addicts over kids looking for a quick high. Addicts had more to lose than her in deals, and she could easily tell them to pay up or fuck off if they tried bargaining. The kids before her definitely weren’t addicts. They had probably never had OxyContin before, to be fair neither had Jade, so bargaining was a better option. Between them, they probably only had sixty dollars, anyways. Jade saw that she was right when they both pulled out their wallets and counted out sixty dollars between them in mostly fives.

In good faith, Jade pulled the pill bottle out of her pocket and unscrewed the child-proof cap while they were counting, showing them that they were indeed buying what she said they were. She shook one of the small, green pills out of the bottle and into her palm, intentionally rattling the pills around inside. Still in good faith, she handed it over before getting paid, something she couldn’t do with addicts.

The guy on the left took the pill from her, and after the guy on the right handed her the cash.

“What’s it do?” the guy on the left asked her as she shoved the bottle and cash into her pockets. Jade realized she had guessed right earlier on them never having taken Oxy before.

She smiled and shrugged, trying to come up with an answer when she didn’t quite know. “You don’t know what euphoria is until you’ve tried it,” she lied but sounded convincing, even to herself.

The two shared a glance again before quickly walking away from her, presumably to try and find a knife. Jade reached for the wine cooler she had set next to her on the windowsill and was about to leave the hallway she was in to keep walking around the frat house.

“Did you just rip those kids off?” she heard a voice ask her and she turned around, the neck of her bottle already too her lips.

“What?” she asked, quickly pulling it away and swallowing the sweet, fizzy liquid.

“Did you really just sell those kids ‘bottled euphoria’ or was that bullshit?” he smiled at Jade and she laughed.

“Oh, that,” she looked past this new guy in the direction her previous customers had headed. “Why?” she asked him, keeping her smile. “Wanna find out yourself?”

“For the low, low price of eighty bucks?” he asked her with a bright, straight smile of his own, and Jade suddenly wondered how long he had been there without her noticing. “I’m assuming you wouldn’t sell another for sixty, right?”

“Those kids barely had sixty bucks between them,” Jade crossed her arms, “That was the only way I’d sell. You look like you’ve got eighty, though.” This guy, contrary to the kids she just sold to, looked well off for a college student. He was clean-cut and well-manicured. He probably had wealthy parents to thank for that. 

“Actually,” he leaned against the wall opposite Jade, “ I was going to see if you’d trade for some kush?”

Her immediate reaction was a “fuck yeah” but Jade had to quickly stop herself. “Sorry,” she told him instead, despite the pain it caused her. “I’m a cash-only girl.”

“No, I don’t think you are,” he told her, keeping his smile when Jade had lost hers.

“Problem is, they aren’t mine,” Jade explained, hoping he’d understand. “And I don’t think the guy I’m getting them from would like me paying him back in pot.”

For a moment Jade was afraid that the guy wouldn’t give. “Too bad,” he told her after a moment of silence, “You seem fun.”

“I— what?” Jade asked, unable to stop herself from laughing again at his odd statement.

“You look like you know how to have fun,” he clarified, standing straight from leaning on the wall and taking a step towards her.

“Oh, well,” Jade struggled, feeling like he was intentionally flirting with her over just wanting to trade for her pills. “Too bad you don’t have the cash to find out.” He was attractive, sure. Much more attractive than Corey. That realization, that comparison, hit her with an immediate sense of guilt.

“But what if I did?” he asked her and took another step forward, almost making Jade step back. “What if…” he asked and Jade’s eyes lowered to his mouth for a brief moment before she forced them back up to his own eyes. “What if I bought two, one for both of us? Could you take the rest of the night off then to hang out?”

“I can’t,” Jade told him, taking two steps back from him before crossing her arms. “Bad idea to get high off what I sell. Besides,” she shrugged breaking eye contact to look around them briefly. “I’m here for work, not partying. But if you have one-twenty I’d let you buy two anyways,” she added quickly, hoping to use the price point of sixty dollars a pill like a peace treaty when she saw him finally lose his smile.

“Another time then?” he ignored her previous offer. “Are you local? Do you go home for the summer?”

“I’m not in school,” Jade shook her head.

“Explains why I haven’t seen you around campus before,” he said, quickly squaring his broad shoulders with a sudden swell of confidence. “There’s a coffee shop nearby we can meet up at when you aren’t ‘working’,” he suggested and Jade took a moment to realize that he had asked her out.

“Oh, I uh,” she laughed at her stupidity, “I can’t. I got a boyfriend.”

“Of course you do,” he briefly looked disappointed again, but Jade was wrong to think that would make him give up. “He doesn’t have to know.”

“He’s the jealous type,” Jade explained, “He’d know. One way or another.”

“Is he here?” the guy asked before laughing, “We could ask permission together.”

“What?” Jade asked. She had never heard that excuse before. “No, he isn’t here.”

“He the ‘owner’ for your pills then?”

“Uh,” Jade found his question odd, “No, he’s—”

“So he doesn’t know that you’re here, now?” he cut her off and Jade, for a moment, thought about lying. The truth was, Corey had no idea Nacho was having her deal at a college graduation party. She knew that Corey would flip his shit if he knew, and she had made that point very clear to Nacho. He was the only one who knew where she was that night.

“Um,” Jade started, and for an excuse to look away from the guy, she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket like she was checking the time. “He does—” she started while flipping her phone open, deciding to lie to the guy before she was cut off again, but this time it was another party goer.

“Hey!” a girl Jade remembered from earlier came practically running down the hallway towards her and the guy hitting on her.

“Look,” Jade sighed, dropping her arms to her side, making sure not to spill her drink or drop her phone in the process. Her focus had completely switched from the guy to the junkie she had to deal with earlier. “I already told you, if you don’t have the money you aren’t getting shit.”

“I got it— I have it, look,” she told Jade with a quick breath, shoving her hands into her pockets to pull out two wads of crumpled dollar bills. Immediately Jade wondered how she had come up with so much cash so fast, before deciding that she didn’t care, that wasn’t her concern. “I—I got, like four hundred okay?”

“You want, what, five of them?” Jade asked, raising her eyebrow before glancing at the guy who was previously hitting on her.

“Yeah, yeah give me five,” the girl answered, where Jade remembered her begging for only one about an hour ago when all she had was about forty bucks. Now, this girl was practically shoving four hundred dollars at her.

“Uh, fine. Whatever. Hold these?” Jade reminded herself not to care where the cash had come from while she handed her phone and drink off to the guy. The junkie might have freaked out if she took a second to pocket her phone and put her drink back on the windowsill. Silently, he accepted both.

Jade, once they were free, held her hands out for the dollar bills and took a moment to try and smooth them out when several dropped to the floor and the girl fell to her knees to gather them up for Jade. “Thanks,” she said, nearly stumbling backward when the girl stood back up, way too close to her. Jade quickly took a step back before having to physically put her hands on the junkie’s shoulders and push her against the opposite wall of the hallway, “Chill out and let me count, okay?” she told the girl with a hint of force.

“Okay, cool, yeah,” the girl nodded and managed to wait for Jade to count the cash. It was, indeed, four hundred dollars.

Jade folded the cash and shoved it into her left jeans pocket before pulling the pill bottle out of her right, keeping an eye on the girl to make sure that the bottle wouldn’t get snatched out of her hands while she shook five of the round green pills into the palm of her hand. “Here,” she said once she capped the bottle and it was once again safe in her right jeans pocket.

The girl stepped forward from the wall quickly, holding out her hand for Jade. “Don’t, like, take all of these at once okay? I can’t sell you more if you OD and die,” Jade told her and the girl met her eyes for a moment before nodding.

“Right, okay,” Jade’s words seemed to have little effect on her, and Jade dumped the OxyContin into her outstretched hand. Without a word or even a brief “thanks”, the girl turned and left Jade and the guy alone in the hallway.

“Wow, that was a mess,” the guy watched the girl leave, and Jade looked at him, hoping she could weasel her way out of their previous conversation now.

“Yeah, and I’ve gotta do that, like, a thousand more times, so…” she held her hand out for her drink and phone. With little more than a smile, he handed both back to her. “Thanks,” Jade half mumbled, shoving her phone back into her pocket before turning around.

“Let me get you another drink at least?” he suggested and Jade stopped, looking back at where he remained standing. At least he wasn’t trying to follow her around.

“I’m good with this for now,” Jade shook her head. “See you later, yeah?”

“Maybe,” the guy didn’t look too disappointed as Jade left him in the hallway, and she figured that had gone much smoother than she had hoped.

~-----~

The next few hours at the party went about as Jade would have expected. She was making good money selling Nacho’s pills, despite having initially thought she wouldn’t be able to. She had also managed to stay away from any temptations of getting high at the party, though her “safe choice” of a low alcohol content wine cooler had eventually turned into a couple cans of beer, and then to a typical red plastic party cup with some concoction of hard liquor and flat soda. She had forgotten that she had not wanted to actually get drunk at the party since she didn’t want to “lose” the pills or any of the cash she had made for Nacho.

Jade found herself in this state around two in the morning, after the party had calmed down considerably. She was sitting on the stairs of the house, about halfway up, pretending to listen to one college student complain about how her professor “hated her” and refused to let her make up any missed work so she had barely passed the class. Jade probably hadn’t said a word to her in response, opting instead for nodding or a brief “mhm”, and the girl just kept talking.

The gesture and false noises of agreement were almost automatic at this point, coming as effortlessly as breathing.

Jade in an attempt to break up the monotony and endless talking from this girl, brought her red cup to her lips. While trying to stomach the harsh taste of liquor and flat soda, Jade looked off the stairs and past the bannister towards the main room in the home where most people had gathered. She recognized several of the party-goers from her dealings and smiled at the two dorks she had told to cut a pill in half while they sat next to each other, completely out of it on a couch.

Maintaining her autopilot, Jade nodded again as the girl kept talking, but kept her focus on everyone else. Jade noticed then, as she continued scanning the party goer's with this girl talker her ear off, the guy who was previously hitting on her in the hallway. She lingered on him for a moment, the feeling of guilt she had when she realized he was much more attractive than her current boyfriend and that she wouldn’t mind “hanging out with him” came back to her, though it was dulled by the alcohol she was drinking. As if on a prompt, she looked to her cup and took another drink before wincing at the taste.

“I mean, isn’t that, like, complete bullshit?” the girl in front of Jade asked her and Jade looked briefly from her cup to her.

“Oh yeah, totally,” Jade nodded though she had no idea what exactly was bullshit that the girl was complaining about now. Instead of listening to the rant and figuring that bit out, she turned her blue gaze back to the guy from before, only now he was struggling to open a small baggie between his left hand and his teeth, while his right held onto his own red plastic party cup.

Jade’s expression changed to that of confusion as she watched him. He didn’t struggle long in getting the baggie open, and after he poured the contents, a fine, granular, white powder, into the cup. After, he shoved the empty baggie back into his front pocket on his jeans and swirled cup around, more than likely mixing the powder into the liquid within.

Jade thought it was immediately strange, the first thing her mind had jumped to was that the guy had gotten ahold of some coke and decided to drink it like he was a weirdo with a stomach ache. However, the guy made no move to take a drink from the cup, instead, he started forward, walking into the crowd in the living room, towards another girl Jade hadn’t met yet.

“Hey!” the girl in front of Jade called her attention back and Jade’s head snapped forward.

“Huh?” she asked the girl standing before her, a few stairs below.

“What are you staring at?” she questioned. Instead of answering, Jade looked back to the guy, watching him hand the red plastic cup to the girl that was waiting for him.

“Hold this,” Jade stood up quickly, shoving her own nearly finished drink to the girl. Second by second, Jade was realizing that the situation was far from good and that it wasn’t coke he had poured into that cup.

“Uh, okay?” she took the cup from Jade before watching her stumble down the stairs to the landing in the middle. “Are you okay?” she asked her.

Jade, who had caught her balance by running into the wall turned around, keeping her back to the wall for support, and gave the girl a thumbs up. “I’m good, hold that,” she told the girl again before taking the last few stairs down to the ground floor, both her hands holding onto the railing for balance. Once she was on level ground, Jade tried making a beeline forward towards the guy, but the surrounding room was too crowded and her feet didn’t seem to be able to keep themselves straight.

Nevertheless, Jade still made quick progress towards the two, and before she knew it, she was about three steps away with no idea of what to do or say to either of them. With her body on autopilot, she suddenly decided the best course of action would be “accidentally” knocking the drink out of the girl’s hand. Jade could say a quick sorry and be gone in another second.

Without much thought, Jade followed through with the plan, but her execution was overzealous. Instead of simply spilling the drink, Jade full-on barreled into the girl, making the contents of the cup spill over her party dress. Both Jade and the other girl froze, staring at the mess she had created.

“Uh, s-sorry—!” Jade started before the girl threw the empty cup at Jade. She didn’t stop there and, before Jade realized it was happening, the girl had shoved Jade backward, hard. If it wasn’t for the guy standing half behind her, and catching her, Jade would have fallen flat on her back.

“You’re sorry? You stupid bitch, I can’t wash this dress!” the girl shouted back at Jade, some of the party-goers stopping what they were doing to watch.  
Jade's only response was to stare back at the angry girl, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. With her lack of response, the girl stormed off, leaving Jade alone with the guy.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She heard him ask and looked behind herself before trying to turn around and face him. She found it difficult, realizing the guy still had a tight grip from behind on her upper arms. Jade was able to turn around far enough to look him in the face, seeing a mirrored image of the other girl’s anger on his features.

“Uh, what… what was in that?” Jade asked him, her mind slowly catching up with the situation she had put herself in.

“What?” the guy asked her in return and Jade cleared her throat, finding her voice.

“What did you put in her drink?” she asked much more clearly. After, her heart nearly stopped, watching his anger turn into a pure, primal looking rage.

“Move,” he forced Jade around, pushing her back towards the staircase.

“Ow,” she complained, his grip on her arms reaching a surprising level of pain through her drunkenness. “Hey, ow!” she rose her voice, trying to stop them both from continuing.

“Keep walking,” he warned, pushing her forward.

“Whoa, dude, chill out,” one of the party-goers spoke up as they passed but Jade looked back, seeing the rage instantly disappear from the guy's face. He even put on a pleasant smile, and Jade felt her own eyes widen slightly, feeling unsettled at the sudden change.

“She’s really drunk, ignore her,” he told the guy who tried to intervene and immediately he backed down.

“Good luck with that,” he laughed, and before Jade could speak up, she was being shoved towards the staircase again.

The only other person who seemed to pay them any mind as he forced Jade upstairs was the girl who was previously talking Jade’s ear off. She was still in the same spot, holding onto Jade’s forgotten cup.

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes as Jade and the guy passed her, and Jade didn’t have to guess what she was assuming.

“Wait,” she spoke up again, watching the girl turn around and start down the stairs. “Hey, wait!” Jade demanded, unsure if she was speaking to the girl or the guy forcing her upstairs.

“I can’t believe you,” the guy said, finally letting go of Jade’s arms when they were upstairs and she quickly spun around.

“You can’t believe me?” Jade asked in spite. “Like, what the hell? What is happening?” she asked, holding her hands up against her forehead. “What did you put in her drink—!” Jade started to ask again but she was quickly silenced, one of his hands had shot up to cover her mouth before he pushed her back up against a nearby wall in the upstairs hallway they found themselves in.

“You turn me down and then when you see me with some other chick you flip out and throw a drink at her? Are you kidding me?” he asked while Jade forced his hand away from her mouth with both of hers.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jade asked, a hint of venom in her own voice. “Let me go, you’re hurting me,” she told him again, trying to shove back at his chest but the guy wasn’t budging, he was rock solid under his shirt. Jade wasn’t going anywhere if he didn’t want her to.

“You got jealous that I forgot about you, didn’t you,” he asked, pressing her harder into the wall before grabbing for her wrists and pinning them above her head.

“You’re crazy—and that hurts, what the hell dude? What are you talking about?” Jade tried yanking her arms down but his grip on her was just as tight as before.

“Just admit it,” he told her and, in a singular sobering moment, she felt his thigh wedge itself between her own legs. Suddenly Jade felt like she couldn’t breathe but tried to suppress the frightened gasp she gave while staring wide-eyed up at his face.

“Let go of me,” she told him flat as she stopped struggling.

“Why would I do that?” he asked her. “You’re obviously so desperate for my attention—”

“Please just let go of me,” she cut him off before taking a calming breath in, trying not to panic. “I told you I have a boyfriend.”

“That’s a lie,” he laughed at her, but his face kept the same malice it had since she had spilled that other girl’s drink.

“His name is Corey and I even have a heart next to his name in my phone—”

The guy cut jade off this time as he leaned closer to her. “I told you you’re lying. I know you are.”

“I—I’m not—”

“Are you a slut?” the word, laced with venom, was like a slap to the face the way he said it. “Then you’re lying. You don’t have a boyfriend,” he told her like it was a sudden truth she had no idea about. Like Corey had up and disappeared from the face of the planet. “You should have left me earlier instead of causing this shit,” he added and Jade decided to stay quiet this time since words weren’t doing anything for her. Her heart was beating wildly against her chest, and she tried pressing herself further against the wall since she had no other way to move that wasn’t forward.

“You should have taken me up on my offer, and we could have been out of that hell hole downstairs three hours ago,” he added, less loud but every bit as frightening as before, and Jade turned her head slightly to avoid his own when he leaned down closer to her.

“I had to sell—”

“Oxy, I know,” he told her. At least he wasn’t denying those existed. She could feel the pill bottle in her right pocket and suddenly remembered all the cash she had. The guy knew it existed also, and Jade was suddenly afraid for another reason, though it was much more preferable to what was happening now. What would Nacho even do to her if she got robbed?

She almost smiled, suddenly finding her way out. “I can text my guy and tell him I don’t feel good?” she falsely suggested. She couldn’t get away with calling Nacho and screaming at him to pick her up, but she could do it through text.

“Lucky for you, we don’t have to leave. You’re not texting anyone,” he told her with that same venom in his voice. The relief she had found with her quick plan for escape vanished about as quickly as the guy forced his lips onto hers. Immediately, Jade tried turning her head to the side but the guy’s free hand caught her jaw and turned her head back to him. His painful grip alone was enough to get Jade to stand still. She figured, while she tried responding to his lips on her own, that if she let him kiss her she could figure out another way to text Nacho and have him pick her up.

To try and keep herself from breaking down fully, Jade balled her hands into tight fists, feeling the edges of her nails dig into her palms. Meanwhile, she tried her best to kiss the guy back and act like she wasn’t scared out of her mind while also trying to ignore the taste of hard liquor on the guy's tongue.

Another sudden idea came to Jade, and she could only hope the guy would give a damn. That was if she could convince him, and if she could actually get her mouth free for a second.

“Mm—” she hummed into their kiss and she pressed her body forward, trying to ignore the friction from his thigh that was still held between her legs.

“What—?” he started to ask, sounding extremely annoyed with her. Almost as quickly as he had said the one word, Jade had blurted out her full sentence.

“I have to pee,” she told him urgently and watched his eyebrows press together in a frown.

“So?” he said and tried leaning back down but Jade successfully evaded him this time.

“I’m serious, I really gotta pee. Do you want me to pee on you?” she kept her head downturned and to the side but looked back up to his face with her bloodshot eyes. “It’ll be a second, okay?” she tried bargaining.

For a terrifying moment, it didn’t look like he believed her, but then he surprised Jade by stepping back from where he had her pinned against the wall. He kept his hand on her wrists and pulled her forward, yanking her along with him as he silently walked down the hallway before he stopped at a closed door. With his free hand, he pulled out a key and, to Jade’s surprise, he unlocked the handle of the door. Unfortunately, when he opened the door, Jade saw that it was a bedroom instead of a bathroom. Her heart jumped into her throat when she saw the bed, and it nearly strangled her as she tried to plead with him.

“I’m serious, it’ll be like two seconds—”

The guy cut her off by pulling her through the threshold of the open door before he slammed it shut behind her. “Bathroom,” he pointed with his free hand, keys still held in his palm, and Jade looked towards where he was pointing.

“Thanks,” she breathed, trying not to cry as she saw the attached bathroom, and rushed into it when he finally let go of her wrists.

The second she was able to close and lock the bathroom door, Jade nearly lost all composure. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, and nearly tripped over the bathtub as she backed away from the door. After she had recomposed herself to the point where she wouldn’t start violently crying, she pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket with a shaking hand. To curb the feeling of her knees about to give out, she sat on the closed toilet lid as she flipped open her phone and navigated to her texts.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
nacho

She wasn’t quite sure what else to put on her text and honestly just needed his attention so he could come to get her. She flipped her phone closed after making sure that it was silenced (she didn’t want this guy flipping out if he heard her phone go off) and tried to patiently wait for a response. Jade didn’t get past the half-minute mark before she flipped her phone open again, texting Nacho several more times.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/3  
hey  
Text: 2/3  
nacho  
Text: 3/3  
NACHO

A loud series of bangs on the bathroom door made her jump and she nearly dropped her phone. “What are you doing?” she heard the guy ask from the other side of the locked door before she heard the door handle jiggle.

“H-hold on,” Jade answered before clearing her throat and forcing a more confident tone, “I’ll be out in a sec.” She got no response from the other side of the door and Jade figured she had bought herself another minute or two. Unfortunately, even if Nacho answered her texts, there was no way he was a minute away from the party. Jade realized she couldn’t get herself out of this situation, she’d have to go with that guy or try to run. She looked up above the bathtub then, her blue eyes landing on a small, frosted window.

“Party trick,” she breathed, remembering the joke Nacho had told her the first night they had hung out and he had broken her into her room. Jade doubted he ever meant it in a literal sense, or that he had ever had to escape a party through a tiny bathroom window before, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t.

Jade quickly stood from the toilet and moved to the window, figuring out how to get it open and realized there was a screen in the way. She had never taken such a close look at how a window was made before, but in another minute she had somehow shimmied the screen off and it fell out, onto the rooftop below.

Jade paused, completely silent as she hoped the guy hadn’t heard the thud the screen made. There was no more banging on the bathroom door, so Jade moved to hoist herself up with the wall of the bathtub, slowly pulling herself through the open window. By the time she was out she had nearly lost her baggy pants and had to pull them back up over her hips after crawling out onto the roof.

“Hey!” she could hear the guy banging on the bathroom door again as she stood up and she looked back into the bathroom through the open window.

“I’m almost done!” she called back through the window but didn’t bother replacing the screen or closing it again as she walked around the roof towards the porch. Jade figured that would be the easiest way for her to get down but when she got there, she realized she was still very high up in the air.

“Oh fuck, okay,” she took in a shaky breath, lowering to her hands and knees before sitting on the ledge of the roof with her feet hanging over the side. The porch railing was still a good four or five feet below her and her initial thought of trying to scoot over the edge proved too daunting. Instead, Jade turned around and lowered herself onto her stomach so she could slide off that way while still holding onto the gutter. By the time she had her body dangling off the edge of the roof and only her arms were holding her up she could barely feel the porch railing with the tips of her shoes. She tried looking over the edge but her own body was in the way, Jade realized she would either have to pull herself back up or just go for it. She managed to slide the rest of the way off of the roof while still holding onto the gutter and was immediately relieved when her feet landed on the porch railing. Before she could catch her balance without holding onto the gutter, Jade heard it groan and then snap as she pulled it off the edge of the roof.

She screamed as she fell backward off the porch rail, landing hard on her back in the half-dead front lawn with the gutter still held in her hands. She had ripped nearly all of it off of the roof. Jade laid there in shock for a moment, feeling pain radiating off of her back before she heard some guys cheering and laughing at her. Moving the gutter away from her, she slowly sat up and looked to the porch where a few guys were pointing at her or raising there red plastic cups in a mock toast.

“Hell yeah, this is a real party now!”

“There's chicks falling from the sky!”

Jade only blinked in response before remembering that she was literally trying to escape the party house. She forced herself up and onto her feet before she picked a direction and ran, she didn’t even brush herself off first.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
come get me  
Text: 2/2  
NOW

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Why 

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
please just come get me

The T9 predictive text on her phone was barely able to keep up with how fast her thumb pressed the number keys. She waited for the words to catch up to make sure her text was coherent before pressing send. Meanwhile, she hadn’t stopped her brisk pace and nearly collided with a parked car in the street before she looked up.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Carlos is picking you up at 5

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
tell him to come NOW

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Why  
Text: 2/2  
What happened

Jade stopped in the street, looking around herself again. She was a good fifteen minutes away from the party now, and so far it didn’t look like she was being followed. Finally feeling safe enough to try and call him, she was interrupted by another text.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Where are you?

“I don’t know,” Jade answered his text aloud, her breath coming heavy and fast as she searched for a street sign or another neighborhood intersection. Spotting one just ahead, she moved quickly towards it before texting the street names to Nacho. Almost immediately after pressing send he was calling her.

“Marquette and Washington?” he was asking before she could say anything.

“That’s just—I don’t—I’m there now,” Jade stumbled through her words, feeling the urge to keep going but she didn’t want to get lost or make it so Nacho would be unable to find her.

“What?” he asked before sighing and cursing in Spanish. “What happened to the party?”

“The party? Nothing—Nacho please just come pick me up, pleasepleaseplease!” she begged, not bothering to take a breath.

“Are there cops?” he asked her.

“No, Nacho—”

“Answer me, Jade. Did cops show up?” Nacho rose his voice to regain her attention, versus just yelling at her.

“No. No cops.” She couldn’t say anything else before his next question.

“What happened? Were you mugged?”

“No, I wasn’t. Just please, Nacho, I want to go home…” the last few words left her mouth in a sob and she moved her phone quickly away from her face while her free hand clamped over her mouth. She took a moment, squeezing her eyes shut before she completely lost her mind and started crying in the middle of the dark neighborhood.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” she chanted quietly to herself before she felt the sudden panic recede and she took a deep breath. “Please, Nacho, I’m gonna get lost if I try to walk home,” she brought the phone up to her ear, speaking over whatever he was saying. “Come get me.”

He was silent for a moment before finally agreeing. “Okay. I’ll pick you up, but I need to find you. What way did you walk?”

“I don’t know… I-I walked, I took random streets,” Jade admitted.

“Just north of that house should have been Lomas. Did you cross that street?” Nacho asked her.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m still in the neighborhood,” she told him.

“Okay, walk north, and text me the first major crossroads you reach,” Nacho instructed her, and Jade spun in a full circle, wondering which way was north.

“Okay, thank you,” she told him instead of asking for better directions, and he ended the call.

It took her another determined 15 minutes to finally reach a major intersection, and when she did, she was surprised at the cross streets. She pulled out her phone from where she had shoved it back into her pocket along with the bottle of pills, and quickly text Nacho.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
washington and central

Jade kept her phone in her hand this time and looked around the deserted intersection. So far she hadn’t been followed, or even spotted by anyone, and her paranoia was slowly fading into abhorrence.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Whats around you?

Jade looked around the intersection before listing off a few buildings in a text.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
chinese restaurant bar bank

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Go to the bank  
Text: 2/2  
5 minutes

Trying to keep herself composed, Jade took a deep breath and made her way to the bank’s parking lot. Being near two in the morning, of course, it was completely deserted. Jade took a seat on the curb in front of the ATM machine, the most brightly lit spot that wasn’t in the middle of the parking lot under the lights.

True to his word, Nacho showed up five minutes later in his Chevy van, only he didn’t drive into the lot. Instead, he pulled to a stop in the bicycle lane on the empty street and waited for her. For a terrifying second, she wasn’t sure that it was Nacho, but she hadn’t ever seen anyone else in New Mexico with an ugly brown and orange van like his.

Jade moved fast, pushing off the curb and running to Nacho’s van, pulling the passenger door open for herself so she could jump into the seat. Just as fast, she locked the door and pulled the seatbelt over herself, but Nacho didn’t make any attempt to drive away. He didn’t do anything but stare at her.

“Nacho, please go,” she panted at him, her heart already racing in her chest.

“There's no cops?” he asked her, half turned in his seat to face her while she looked between him, the windshield, and the passenger window.

“There’s no cops—”

“Look at me and tell me there’s no cops,” he stopped her with that same assertive voice he had used over the phone.

Immediately she turned back to face him and took a deep breath. It was meant to calm herself down, but instead, her panic rose to fill the void the breath left in her chest. “There’s no cops,” she told him but was afraid that her shaking voice and tear-filled eyes wouldn’t convince him. What would he do? Would he kick her out of the van? Would he leave her on this side of town?

Suddenly she was just as afraid as she was when she had snuck away from that guy at the party and ran away from the house. She was doing this for Nacho so he wouldn’t kill her, Corey, and Joel, not because they were anything remotely close to friends. This was probably the stupidest thing she had ever done.

“There’s no cops, I left the party on my own,” she tried clarifying, before trying (and failing) to swallow the lump in her throat.

“Did someone threaten you or steal the pills or cash?”

“N—no, I have it all still,” Jade knew better than to pull out the cash and bottle she had in her pockets.

“Then what happened?” he stressed and Jade couldn’t stand looking at him anymore. Instead, she sat forward in her seat and squeezed her eyes shut, balling her hands into fists to try and control her meltdown.

“I just want to go home, please,” she squeaked out, and she finally felt some relief when she heard him respond.

“Okay,” he told her before switching the van into drive and smoothly pulling away from the curb. Nacho drove in silence, as usual, but she was wrong to think he was taking her home. Instead, after a silent ten-minute drive towards her house, Nacho pulled off into the parking lot of a deserted park.

“What are we doing?” she asked quickly, hoping that Nacho wasn’t going to make her sit in a park the rest of the night and sell Oxy.

“Tell me what happened,” he told her, turning the engine off to his van and pulling the keys out of the ignition. She realized it was his way of telling her that she had to explain herself or she wasn’t getting home.

“There weren’t any cops, Nacho, I promise—”

“I’m not asking about cops,” he interrupted her, but he wasn’t as stern as when she had gotten in the van with him. “I’m asking you to tell me what has you so scared,” he clarified after a moment, keeping his eyes on her even though Jade couldn’t make eye contact.

“I’m not scared,” she tried convincing him but halfway through she realized there was no use in lying. She was just as scared as she was when she first met Nacho. “I just… It was a really shitty party okay?” Jade was looking everywhere but at Nacho, and felt her chest heaving against the seatbelt of the van. She pulled at it, but it was still too hard for her to breathe properly. “I just didn’t wanna be there anymore,” she closed her eyes and tried to relax but she soon couldn’t breathe.

“There’s a lot more to this that you don’t understand. If someone scared you off, or jumped you,” Nacho started but Jade shook her head quickly. “I need to know what happened,” he pushed and Jade tried calming herself down, realizing she couldn’t get out of this without either walking the rest of the way home or telling Nacho what had happened with that guy.

“I—” she heaved, eyes still closed for a moment before she opened them and unbuckled her seatbelt, frantically searching for the door’s lock and handle so she could get out of the van. “I can’t breathe,” she tried explaining so Nacho wouldn’t think she was trying to run away from him. The fresh air outside the van didn’t help much with her anxiety, and she tried to focus on the smell of fresh-cut grass and wet dirt carrying over on a light breeze from the patchy fields at the park.

“Hey,” Nacho was quick to jump out of his van as well and made his way around the front of the van to where Jade was leaning against the passenger side.

“I’m sorry,” she panted, dizzy. She was only keeping herself standing because her back was against Nacho’s van. It didn’t help that she still felt drunk from all the booze she had that night, despite what had happened.

“Jade, what is going on—?”

She cut Nacho off this time, trying to explain through her labored breathing. “There was this chick… in her cup… this guy had… a baggie… and I spilled it…”

“What?” Nacho had a look of urgency suddenly wash over him and he grabbed onto her shoulders. “Did you take something? What did you take?” he asked quickly, his grip tightening on her shoulders and Jade shook her head “no” quickly. “Do I need to take you to a hospital?”

Jade reached up to grab onto one of his wrists with her right hand, wanting to tell him that he was overreacting, and that she was alright, and that nothing happened, and that everything was going to be fine. Instead, realizing all of those statements were lies, Jade couldn’t do anything but sob.

“Hey,” he tried getting her attention back, her right hand still holding onto him and her left was clamped over her mouth. “Jade?” he asked a long moment later, and surprised her when he gently pulled her forward, into his chest. It took her a moment to realize, but let go of his wrist and threw her arms around his waist tightly when she realized he was hugging her.

“I’m sorry,” she forced out, squeezing her eyes shut with the side of her face pressed into his shoulder and her hands clutched in the material of his shirt.

“Just breathe and talk to me, okay?” he asked her, patiently waiting for her to calm down and unclench her fists from his shirt while his own arms rested loosely around her back. Jade was able to stop herself from crying quickly but stayed wrapped in Nacho’s arms and his scent of fancy cologne for a while longer. She felt safe, finally, from that guy at the party, despite who and what Nacho was.

“I saw some guy slip something into this chick’s drink,” she explained again, much calmer than the first time. After, Jade opened her eyes and she stepped away from Nacho, her hands letting go of his shirt and her arms falling away from him, but Nacho kept his hands on her shoulders. “And I, like, I don’t know. I panicked and spilled it all over her like it was an accident,” she continued, rubbing at her eyes and wiping off her damp cheeks. “And she was pissed, right? And she rushed off to the bathroom or whatever, but the guy, Jesus Christ, Nacho, the guy was fucking insane about it.”

“That was stupid,” Nacho told her and his hands left her shoulders so he could take a step back. Still feeling tipsy, dizzy, and shaky, Jade leaned her back against his van again. With how fast her heart had been racing near constant all night, it felt like it was about ready to give up on her now.

“Stupid?” she asked, her hands moving to her hips. “What else was I supposed to do? I don’t know what he gave her, I didn’t know what he was gonna do,” Jade answered.

“You shouldn’t have interfered,” Nacho shrugged. “And he knew you knew?”

“I asked him what he put in— What do you mean I shouldn’t have interfered? I should’ve just minded my own business and let some chick get date raped, is what you’re saying?” Jade’s voice rose as she grew suddenly angry with Nacho. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“And your way of fixing it was putting yourself in her situation?” Nacho snapped back at her, suddenly just as angry as she was. Jade didn’t respond since, yeah, that was her solution. Realizing she wasn’t going to verbally answer, he ran a hand down his face before asking, “What did you take?”

“What?” Jade asked, her mind jumping to him thinking that she had used whatever she was supposed to be selling.

“What did you take? Did you just drink? Did the creep give you anything? Did anyone else give you an open drink?” he asked her so many questions at once and Jade didn’t know where to start

“I—I just had— I didn’t—”

“Look at me,” he stepped back towards her.

“I am?” she asked and he reached out to her face, holding her there with a palm on either of her cheeks, staring at her eyes. “What?” she asked but allowed him to stare at her for a few moments before his hands fell away from her face and he stepped back again.

“How do you feel?”

“Like… fucking shit?” she wasn’t sure what he wanted from that question either.

“Are you nauseous? Do you have a headache? Can you not stand up?” he motioned to how she was leaning against his van and she stood up, despite still being shaky from her panic attack earlier.

“I’m fine,” she lied to him and it was obvious Nacho didn’t believe her, but he went with it.

“Okay. I’ll take you home—”

“Jesus Christ, thank you,” Jade sighed in relief, cutting him off.

“But if someone slipped you something your parents won’t know why if you start seizing. They won't be watching you if you pass out and choke on vomit.”

“Seriously?” Jade asked, leaning back against his van with her hands once again on her waist.

“I’d feel better if I could keep an eye on you overnight,” he told her, pulling his phone out of his pocket to presumingly check the time.

“What, like stake out my house?” Jade asked and watched Nacho smirk.

“Like let you crash at my place,” he clarified and Jade felt dumb for her previous assumption.

“Oh, right. Fine, whatever. I don’t care, just get me out of here, okay?” she shrugged and Nacho stepped forward to the van’s passenger door, opening it for her and helping her climb in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was much longer to begin with, it had about four scenes maxing out at 12,000 words but holy crap I just feel like that's too much. I decided to cut it in "half" after how long the second scene got and I feel like it ends in a good spot. 
> 
> Thanks again to my boyfriend for being the beta on this chapter, and thank you _so much_ for reading!


	6. Comprendes, Mendes?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade recovers from the previous night at Nacho’s apartment, until he realizes he’s late for an appointment. Jade meets and manages to charm Nacho’s boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Control Machete's song "Comprendes, Mendes?" (because my boyfriend showed me actual Mexican Rap and I surprisingly like it).
> 
> This chapter is about 17.5 novel pages. Grammarly estimates it will take about 31 minutes to read.
> 
> As with the previous chapters, this chapter takes place between season one and two of Better Call Saul. Potential spoilers are ahead.
> 
> Also, the Spanish dialogue used in the chapter will be translated in the notes afterward.

Jade wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting from Nacho’s apartment. He had driven them to, what looked like to Jade, a luxury apartment parking lot and parked his van under an awning between a late nineties Mercedes Benz and a brand new Escalade. After Nacho opened the passenger door of his van to let her out, Jade looked back, stopping to stare at how out of place his van was compared to all the other fancy and expensive vehicles.

“Neighbors hate it,” Nacho called out to her and she turned around, finding him already on the other side of the parking lot, and she quickly stumbled forward to catch up.

“‘Everyone but you hates it’ would be more accurate,” Jade teased and he smirked, leading her through a meticulously manicured courtyard.

“They don’t believe someone here owns it, think it’s parking illegally,” he explained, walking slowly up the path with Jade.

“Didn’t we drive through a locked gate?” Jade questioned and he nodded.

“Exactly.”

“Well,” Jade shrugged, looking around at the apartments, all the curtains drawn and windows dark at the late hour. “Maybe that’s a wake-up call to get a better vehicle.”

“Like what?” Nacho decided to indulge her, glancing over from the path and she immediately shrugged.

“Dunno. You look like a muscle car guy,” Jade suggested.

“What, like I should be driving a Corvette?”

“No, those are for like, mid-life crises,” Jade scrunched up her nose with a shake of her head and Nacho laughed. “I’m talking like… late sixties, early seventies. An actual muscle car. Something you don’t see on the streets every day. Like a Firebird or Falcon or something.”

“Or something?” Nacho repeated, feigning interest as they came to a stairwell. “You okay with stairs?”

“Yeah,” Jade answered.

“Go first,” he nodded, and she obeyed so Nacho could follow behind her. She didn’t have to ask how far up to go since there were only two stories to the buildings.

“It’s gotta be red too,” Jade added, using the handrail for balance as she climbed up the stairs.

“Red?” Nacho asked behind her but Jade didn’t chance to look back in fear that she’d trip and he would think something was wrong with her, even more than he already did. “Why?”

“It's awesome. Like super bright, cherry red.”

“Red cars get pulled over more by cops. And do you think I’d want to drive a classic out to the middle of the desert every other week for Tuco?”

“Who’s Tuco?” Jade asked, wondering what would be wrong with driving a muscle car to the old power plant off of I-40. It wasn’t like he’d be four-wheeling.

“No one,” he answered her quickly, tone changing as they reached the top of the stairs. “Left,” he told her, starting to lead again and he walked past a couple of doors until he came to H24. “You’re talking like you know a lot about older cars,” he stated as he pulled out his keys and unlocked the door.

“Dad builds models. Has, like, fifty of them in the house. Probably more in his office at J.P. Wynne,” Jade explained and Nacho opened the door for her, letting her inside the dark apartment first.

“He's a teacher?”

“No, he's a … guidance counselor,” Jade explained as Nacho flipped a light switch, turning lights on in the living room they walked into, as well as the kitchen that she could see through a kitchen bar window. It definitely wasn’t what she was expecting.

“What?” he asked noticing her pause and looked around the living room before looking back to her.

“Nothing. It’s… cool. Bitchin’.” The apartment itself looked like a wealthy, childless couple lived there. The furniture and what decor he had wasn’t outdated, it was just… very high end and sophisticated. It was not Nacho, that was for sure.

“Yeah,” Nacho’s eyebrows pushed together at her choice of adjective. “Bedrooms there,” he pointed to a hallway and she walked forward, seeing his dark bedroom through an open doorway. Again, she walked in first and he followed before flipping on the light, revealing an unmade king-size bed dressed in black satin sheets.

“Pockets,” Nacho said, stepping to her side with his hand out and Jade turned from the bed to him, shoving her hands into her pockets to pull out the unsold pills, as well as the crumpled dollar bills she had collected. He took them from her without a word and made for his closet, a walk-in Jade noted. Unsure of what to do, she crossed her arms and waited for Nacho to walk back out. After a minute, he reemerged holding a folded blanket under his left arm and a white teeshirt in his right hand.

“Bathroom’s right across the hall if you want. I probably have an extra toothbrush in one of the drawers, and there’s towels if you want to shower,” he handed her the shirt, which Jade silently accepted. He turned then, so he could grab one of the pillows from the bed. “I’ll be on the couch—”

“You don’t have to—”

“Don’t even try it,” he smiled at her as she tried to stop him. “Sleep with the door open so I can hear you. And sleep on your side,” he told her before walking out of his bedroom.

“Goodnight,” she called after him.

“Night.”

Jade stood alone in his room for a moment. Due to the orientation of his room to the living room couch, Nacho wouldn’t be able to see inside the room unless he walked back into the hallway, so she was fine with leaving the door open. It was just… Nacho had first gotten her out of the party situation with that guy, and then he was a distraction from what had happened to her. Now that she was alone, that guy, that creep as Nacho had called him, was the only thing she could think about.

She gave a shaky sigh, trying to stay as quiet as possible so Nacho wouldn’t hear, and took in Nacho’s bedroom. Besides the bed there was a black dresser with sleek silver handles near the bedroom door, a matching black framed mirror hung above it. The ornate bed frame went with the black and silver theme as well, and he even had two matching nightstands on either side of the king-size mattress, and twin lamps on each one. On one of the bare walls near the closet door, there was a row of neatly organized dumbbells set on the ground.

After a minute of just standing there, Jade forced herself to get undressed before throwing on Nacho’s tee-shirt, surprised at how big it was for her, despite initially being surprised that he owned a plain tee-shirt at all. Jade didn’t bother folding the clothes she had been wearing and instead bunched them up, placing them on top of the dark dresser, making sure not to disturb anything Nacho had on top.  
Jade flipped the light off to the room, leaving one of the lamps lit next to the bed. Cell phone in her hand, she hesitantly walked towards the side of the bed that was unmade, before realizing that Nacho had most likely been sleeping there when she had frantically started texting him to pick her up from the party. A twinge of guilt was added into her already uncomfortable feeling while she sat on the edge of the mattress, placing her phone on top of the nightstand next to the lamp.

“Carlos,” he faintly heard Nacho’s voice from the living room and she looked towards the bedroom door, noticing the living room light was still on. Jade waited in silence, assuming that Nacho had called Carlos, who was supposed to pick her up after the party. She figured he was letting Carlos know not to bother but had to speculate when he continued in Spanish.

“Ya la levanté ... No, no la estoy follando,” she could hear Nacho’s heavy sigh from her spot on the bed and she had no idea what was being said. “Jade estaba molesta. Algún pendejo la estaba molestando.”

Jade could only hope Nacho was saying that he already picked her up, saying her name an all. The only other word she could pick up was “no”. She looked at her phone then, wondering if she should text Carlos herself and tell him that Nacho had picked her up already, as if she hadn't overhead his and Nacho’s conversation. At least that way she’d know if Carlos was upset or not.

“Te llamaré mañana. Adiós.” Jade understood “adiós” at least and figured that Nacho ended the call. Immediately after, the living room light turned off and Jade realized the only light left on was the lamp to her side.

She sat for a minute longer on the edge of the bed, trying not to worry about the call Nacho had made to Carlos, trying rid the creep from her mind, and at the same time trying not to feel awkward for taking over Nacho’s bedroom for the night. Jade tried convincing herself that it was like a hotel and nothing more. Just some fancy, well-decorated hotel. She reached down to the drawer on the nightstand, hoping she’d find a bible and prove her sudden theory that all of Nacho’s furniture was stolen directly from a hotel. Instead, as she peeked in, the very first thing she saw was a box of condoms and nearly slammed the drawer shut. 

“That was stupid,” she mumbled to herself, running her hands over her face. “You’re so drunk. Stop being drunk,” she willed herself, lightly slapping her own cheeks a few times. It didn't help, and, with a sigh, Jade reached for the lamp’s switch. When the light was off, bathing her in darkness, she turned and made herself lay down in Nacho's bed. She was immediately comfortable, the mattress was the best thing she had ever laid on, hands down. Jade pulled the satin sheets up to her chest then, feeling the soft fabric against her bare legs, before readjusting the pillows under her head so she could lay on her back. After a moment of trying not to relive the past couple hours in the dark silence, Jade remembered that Nacho told her to sleep on her side and she turned over, facing her phone on the nightstand in front of her and pulling the sheets further up to her neck, noting a faint smell of cologne on them as she did. She took a deep breath in, hoping for something, anything, to distract her so her mind could just go blank and she could sleep.

Jade tried just closing her eyes, willing to wait it out until her brain was tired enough for her to pass out, but her vision was suddenly filled with the creep’s face right in hers and she sat up quickly, hoping she didn’t make any sort of sound loud enough to cause Nacho to check on her.

Jade came slowly to the realization that she wasn’t going to fall asleep that easily, and grabbed for her phone. She flipped it open and navigated quickly to her contacts before wondering who would be awake near two in the morning. Her first thought was Corey, but she stopped with his name highlighted. There was no way, after what she did and where she was now, that she could text him. Especially if he offered to walk the forty-five minutes over to her place. It wouldn’t be the first time either. He always seemed eager to head over to Jade’s house in the dead of night because it almost always led to them getting high, or having sex, or both.

Texting Joel or Taylor at two in the morning didn’t feel right. Tammy wouldn’t mind but she would most likely be asleep. That left Lena, but the girl kept odd hours and Jade could never tell if she would get a coherent response or if she would be too high to text. After thinking a moment, she flipped her phone closed, biting her bottom lip to try and stop herself from crying again. Even if she did get a response, from any of them, she couldn’t talk about what had happened. Corey would flip, twice. Once because of what she had done with a random dude at a party, and again because she was staying the night at Nacho’s place. Joel and Taylor would end up telling Corey or they would find out from Lena. Even with how quiet Tammy was, she was so against drugs and alcohol and partying that she would most likely lack any sympathy for Jade.

At that point, she set her phone slowly down in her lap and hung her head, resting her elbows on her knees with her forehead in one of her hands. She stared at the front screen of her phone, watching the time change from 02:12 to 02:13 before one of her tears fell onto the screen.

Jade sat up then, wiping at her eyes with her hands, trying to clear the tears before they became a problem. She had already broken down in front of Nacho once that night, if she did it again while half-naked in his bed he’d probably think she was a drunk mess or, even worse, keep telling her she was stupid for what she had done. So Jade sat in the dark, in near silence, alone with her demons.

~-----~

When she woke up, Jade didn’t even realize she had fallen asleep. For a moment, she didn’t even remember where she was but she didn’t panic. Her head was in too thick of a fog to care, her eyes ached too much to keep open long, and she was in too comfy of a bed to get up. Jade was too tired to care about anything other then laying where she was and trying to fall back asleep. Then, she heard a toilet flush and like a light switch being turned on, she remembered where she was, in Nacho’s apartment. Without looking, she moved her arm around on the satin sheets, making sure she was covered before pulling them up to her chin.

It wasn’t as dark in the room as it was last night, so Jade figured the sun had already come up and verified this by blindly searching for her phone on the bed. Once found, Jade flipped it open and cracked one of her blue eyes open to read 08:02 on the screen. She sighed, flipping the phone closed again and leaving it in her hand as she closed her eye again, wishing that she could pass back out so she wouldn’t have to face the consequences of what she had done last night.

While concentrating on trying to fall back asleep, she heard the shower turn on and the sound lulled her briefly back to sleep for the next ten minutes until she was pulled back towards reality by a familiar voice speaking in quiet Spanish. She opened her eyes again, watching Nacho walk quietly into the room and towards his closet, with his cell phone up to his ear and not so much as a glance in her direction.

Jade was stunned, watching him walk into the closet, quickly realizing that he was only wearing a towel, and buried her head in the pillow she was using, hoping that he wouldn’t realize she was awake.  
She heard him walk back out of the closet, hanging up with whoever was on the phone with him (distinctly hearing the word “papa”) and then he paused a moment, before walking out of the room.

Jade waited before pulling her head out of the satin pillowcase and checking her phone again, reading 08:23 as the current time. She tried to sit up then, fearing that she was too awake now to try and fall back asleep without her mind wandering to the party and that creep last night. When she did, she was met with radiating pain from the base of her skull down her spine.

“Ow, shit,” she hissed, moving much slower than she had originally anticipated while remembering her fall off the roof of the frat house last night. She rubbed at the back of her neck, but didn’t expect it to help much and sat in Nacho’s bed for a while longer.

When she realized the pain wasn’t easing any, she decided to press forward.“Hey,” she started with a sigh, having to clear her throat before calling out again, “Hey, Nacho?”

“Yeah?” he answered from the living room after a brief silence.

“Can I still use your bathroom?”

“Go for it.” She grabbed her phone before pulling herself out of his bed and stiffly shuffled her way across his floor to the bathroom.

She ended up staring at her reflection in the mirror for a while, even after trying to splash her face with cold water. Her eyes were sore because they were red and swollen from crying last night. Coupled with that, Nacho didn’t have any sort of comb or brush in the bathroom (though she did find and use that extra toothbrush he mentioned). Unsurprisingly, he also didn’t have any kind of makeup she could use to conceal her puffy eyes and dark circles. She even looked in the shower and didn’t find anything but the typical men’s all in one body wash, like they were meant to slather the crap all over themselves and it would be fine.

After deciding just staring at herself wouldn’t help, she left the bathroom and made her way to the living room, finding Nacho on the couch in front of his entertainment system. His television was on and he was eating a bowl of what looked like granola cereal and milk.

“You don’t have a girlfriend who leaves makeup and a comb here, right?” she asked, remembering the box of condoms as she slowly sat down on the opposite end of the couch, wary of her aching back. Jade let her phone fall out of her hand and it landed next to her on the couch cushion.

Nacho looked over to her and was quiet for a moment before he answered, “I told you, I don’t date.”

With a sigh, Jade looked over to him from whatever karate movie he was watching, and quickly noticed he was still shirtless but in gray sweatpants instead of just a towel. Suddenly, as her cheeks began to burn, she realized that she was also half-dressed, wearing just his white tee-shirt.

“Fuck,” she quietly breathed out and pulled the black satin pillow he had used last night over her lap, despite the shirt being long enough to cover everything necessary.

“I don’t care,” Nacho chuckled at her, turning back to his granola and the movie. “Want breakfast?” he offered without looking over at her, and she glanced at what was in his bowl again.

“That looks so gross, I’m okay.”

Nacho didn’t answer her. Instead, he set his bowl down on the coffee table in front of the couch and stood up, walking to his kitchen. Jade watched him through the bar window as he opened the fridge to pull out a gallon of milk before pulling a box and bowl out of a cupboard. He moved out of view then, but Jade could hear him pouring her a bowl of cereal, presumably the same as whatever he was eating, before he put everything back and came out of the kitchen, handing her the bowl with a spoon.

Jade was surprised to find actual cereal inside, specifically cereal shaped like chocolate chip cookies, and she looked back to Nacho as he took his seat on the other side of the couch. “Do you have a kid or something?” she asked and Nacho shook his head, keeping his focus on his own breakfast.

“I don’t even have to look at you to know you’re judging me,” he told her.

“Judging you?” Jade asked, managing to laugh before looking at the cereal. “Cookie Crisp is amazing. It’s just… so not adult-like.”

“Really?” he asked, still not looking over to her and Jade figured it was because she had been visibly uncomfortable earlier in just his shirt. “Its a dessert.”

“Dessert? You mean when you’re not eating gross oats and, like, raw steaks?” she was trying not to stare but Nacho without a shirt on was easy on the eyes, especially since she had never actually seen a shirtless guy this fit up close in real life before.

“Raw steaks?”

“I dunno. Man food.”

“Man food. Right. Next time I need to look manly I’ll just eat a raw steak,” Nacho nodded and pointed to his head like he was going to remember what she said, making her laugh at him before she tested the cereal.

“Thanks for this by the way,” she told him, turning her attention to the badly dubbed movie playing on the television.

“You’re welcome,” he responded, eyes glued to the same television.

“I mean… for all of this,” Jade shrugged.

“It’s fine. I did think you’d sleep longer though,” he admitted and Jade glanced at him quickly, their eyes meeting for a brief moment.

“Yeah, well… Sleep just kind of sucks right now,” Jade responded truthfully.

“If you’re trying to tell me my two thousand dollar bed sucks—”

Jade choked on her cereal, cutting him off quickly. “What?” she swallowed her bite before continuing, “Two grand? And that bed is the most comfortable thing I’ve ever laid on in my entire life, are you kidding?” Nacho smiled into his breakfast as if he were proud. “And I think you’ve converted me to satin sheets. They look tacky but they’re super comfortable. I just… wasn’t tired.”

“You were up for a while,” Nacho stated and Jade was too afraid and embarrassed to glance over at him to see what expression he had. She didn’t think she had been crying that loudly. “I, um,” he cleared his throat, setting his now empty bowl in front of him on the coffee table. “I called out so there’s no rush in me taking you home. You can go lay down ‘til about noon, if you want.”

“You called out?” Jade asked, “Of being a dealer?”

He didn’t answer her and stayed silent for a moment. “Or I can take you home now, or whatever.”

“Well if you’re trying to get rid of me.”

“I’m not. I don’t mind hanging out.”

Jade looked from her cereal to Nacho, then to the movie on TV. “What if I told you that I don’t like these kinds of movies?”

“Then you can walk home,” he nodded towards the front door, but smiled at her, knowing that she was joking.

“Nah, I’m okay,” Jade took another bite of her cereal and leaned back on the couch. “Can we not let Corey know about this, though?”

“Why? Because he wouldn’t be able to handle you spending the night at another guy’s place?” Nacho asked with an obvious tone of disdain.

“To be fair, we are both half-naked,” Jade pointed out, trying to lighten his mood as well as make herself feel better. It worked, at least for him, as she heard Nacho laugh.

“I can put on a shirt if it really bothers you,” he told her but she shook her head, telling Nacho the same thing he said earlier to her.

“I don’t care. But, I meant this and what happened at the party last night.”

“You’re the only one who knows what happened last night,” Nacho lost his smile and when she looked up from her cereal he was staring at the television with a frown.

“Nothing happened,” Jade lied, “Besides what I told you.” It might just be easier to pretend the night never happened. She couldn’t talk to anyone about it, there was no point.

“Okay, cool,” Nacho stated, letting her know that he wouldn’t question it further.

~-----~

The rest of the morning hanging out with Nacho had gone much more smoothly, though she did have to admit to jumping off of a roof after she kept fidgeting in her seat due to her stiff back and neck. Instead of berating her as Jade feared, Nacho instead forced a couple Tylenol on her and moved as far over on his couch as possible so Jade could lay down, with the couch arm under the bend of her knees and her feet hanging over the side.

Their morning was honestly uneventful. They stayed on Nacho’s couch in front of the television, still half-naked as Jade had pointed out earlier, and just… hung out. It took the rest of the kung-fu movie and the beginning of some other old action movie for her to realize, but Nacho really wasn’t that bad to just chill with. They didn’t talk about anything important in the least, and Jade was thankful that he didn’t even mention the previous night. He actually didn’t bring up anything about dealing or drugs or the cartel (though he did laugh and wholeheartedly agree when Jade stated that Carlos had to be compensating for something with his beard).

It was past noon before either of them moved from the couch again. It was Nacho’s phone ringing on the coffee table in front of them that prompted him to lean forward to grab it. Her eyes unconsciously went to his arm, and then to his chest before she averted them to the ceiling of Nacho’s apartment. He hadn’t yet noticed the glances she had been stealing. If he did he didn’t seem to mind. At least, he hadn’t said anything or teased her about it.

Breaking her thought, Jade was startled as Nacho quickly jumped off the couch.

“What?” she asked quickly, perturbed by his actions, and sat up with her legs still hanging over the edge. “Nacho?” she asked, having to turn around, but by the time she did, he had already disappeared into his hallway and, presuming, his bedroom. Jade’s first thought was that his girlfriend had called, but Jade reminded herself that he “didn’t date”.

Jade wondered if she should get up and investigate, but also didn’t want to push her boundaries or barge in on him changing or something. She could still hear him on the phone, speaking in Spanish. Jade couldn’t understand the words but his tone sounded rushed and… guilty? Maybe he did have a girlfriend but didn’t want Jade to know.

“Hey, Nacho?” she tried again, and after a moment she got a response from him.

“Jade, I need you to get dressed,” he told her, rushing back into the living room while trying to both shove his phone into his jeans pocket and button up his shirt over a black tank top. Briefly, she was glad that she didn’t follow him.

“Sure,” she agreed, swinging her legs off the arm of his couch and standing up with a stretch. The Tylenol had helped with the pain but her back was still stiff. Before she could say anything about his potential secret girlfriend, he explained himself.

“I was going to drive you home but I’m late to drops. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize what time it was.” Briefly, Jade glanced at the digital clock on Nacho’s cable box, realizing it was nearly half-past noon.

“It’s cool,” she turned back to him, making her way around the couch and towards his bedroom where her clothes were. “I got a bus pass, it’s no big deal,” she added before she got into his room, closing the door behind her.

She quickly redressed herself in last night’s clothes, after picking off a few blades of grass from her shirt. She tossed them into the small trash near his bed before exiting his room, again trying to tame her hair with only her fingers when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror above Nacho’s dresser.

“You don’t have any hair ties, do you?” Jade asked, walking back to Nacho’s living room where he had already cleaned up their breakfast and turned his television off.

“Why would I have hair ties?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow with a smile despite how rushed he suddenly was. He moved to his front door, opening it up for her as she shrugged, giving up on her hair.

“Worth a shot,” she told him, waiting for him to follow then close and lock his front door behind them. Jade figured she could deal with looking like a hot mess until she got home, it wasn’t like she had anything important to do or anyone to impress.

“I can get you further into town, and you can take the bus from there?” Nacho suggested, leading Jade towards the stairwell of his building and she nodded.

“Yeah, that’s cool.” She couldn’t really be mad at him after everything he’d done already for her the previous night and that morning. They didn’t speak much after that, not like they had been when watching television together. Jade sat silently in the passenger seat of his van and, as he drove through Albuquerque, she slowly had an idea of where they were headed. Jade was proved right when she realized Nacho had driven them both back to that same Mexican diner he had brought her to that first night they hung out, El Michoacáno.

“There’s a bus stop down the street,” Nacho told her as he pulled into the parking lot for the small Mexican diner. He turned the key to his van after parking, shutting off the rumbling engine. “You need cash?”

“No, I got a pass,” Jade reminded him, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“Okay,” Nacho accepted that answer, undoing his own seatbelt before getting out of his van. Jade had already opened her door before Nacho had gotten to her side so he helped her out instead. “Text me when you get home,” he told her and Jade rose an eyebrow at him.

“Why?” she asked him as he closed the passenger door behind her.

“So I know that last night wasn’t for nothing,” he explained, sounding slightly impatient with her.

“Oh,” Jade nodded. That was the first time he had brought up last night on his own. “Okay, I will.”

“I’ll see you,” he told her as she started backing up and she watched him turn around to head into the restaurant.

“Later, Nacho,” she told him, not quite sure if she said it loud enough for him to hear or not. Jade, herself, turned around and started for the sidewalk, heading down Istela Boulevard. Now that she was alone, she felt a small sense of paranoia like somehow she would impossibly run into that guy from the party last night. To try and keep her mind occupied she thought about everything she wanted to do when she got home, though the list only had two items; take a hot shower and cry in bed. Mentally, she made sure to add “text Nacho” to that list.

Just as she was about to the intersection with Blake Road, she heard Nacho call out behind her, “Jade!”

“What?” she asked as she turned around and saw Nacho following her with a stern look on his face. “What?” she asked again as he walked up to her. She looked behind Nacho and noticed another man standing outside of the restaurant now, with his arms crossed while he glared at them.

“Don’t talk unless he talks to you. Short yes or no answers, you understand?” Nacho spoke quietly when he was close enough. “Don’t say anything about the Oxy, it doesn’t exist.”

Jade wanted to question him but the look on his face, it was something reminiscent of fear and Jade’s mouth went dry. She nodded and started following Nacho back towards the restaurant and the man.  
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked as they neared and Jade looked back to Nacho, not expecting to be addressed so directly after what Nacho had said.

“Jade,” she turned back to the man with as simple of an answer as possible.

“Jade?” the man questioned her before looking to Nacho, who had stopped beside her. “The fuck is she, ese?”

“She’s new, working for Krazy-8.” When Nacho responded he sounded calm, and his voice was a tone softer than usual. It was as if he was trying to soothe a wild animal.

“If she’s slinging for Krazy why isn’t she dropping?” the man asked, dropping his arms from his chest, his hands balled into fists, mirroring the boxing glove necklace he wore.

“I get the crystal from Krazy and I give him most everything I make off it,” Jade quickly answered before Nacho could and suddenly the man’s attention was back on her.

“You’re working for Krazy-8,” he repeated Nacho’s earlier words.

“Yes,” Jade answered straight.

“Tuco,” Nacho regained his attention with the same cautious tone of voice. Jade remembered the name from the night before when Nacho had let it slip, but she still wasn’t sure who he was.

“¿La pinche gringa está trabajando para Krazy-8?” Tuco laughed, pointing to Jade. “Oh man,” he kept laughing. “That’s brilliant! I bet the police don’t even look at her!” Next to her, Jade heard Nacho sigh and she wondered if it was from relief. She still felt dread growing from the pit of her stomach. “C’mon! You don’t have to leave,” Tuco waved her along as he started back for El Michoacáno. “She’s not a snitch, right?”

“No,” Nacho answered quickly before Jade could even open her mouth. He looked over to her and nodded towards the restaurant. She followed both men inside, unable to refuse.

Tuco was the first inside, and Nacho held the door open for Jade, entering last behind her. The cook in the back of the restaurant called for Tuco and he walked back, but Jade stayed by the entrance, watching Nacho flip the open sign to closed. “Stay relaxed,” Nacho told her under his breath and Jade looked to him, taking note of how serious his expression was. “Don’t react if he starts acting weird or gets violent, okay? Stay calm.”

“Violent?” Jade questioned in just as quiet of a voice. The word made her stomach flip. What did “violent” mean? Nacho didn’t get a chance to explain to her what he meant before Tuco spoke up from the opposite end of the restaurant.

“Jade,” both her and Nacho’s heads whipped around when Tuco called her name. “You want some tacos?” he asked, walking back towards them with a plate of tacos. Before he had walked fully back over to them, he stopped and set the plate down on a table adjacent to one that held a duffel bag. Jade blinked at him in response before she found her voice.

“I, um… No. I’m okay.”

“They’re good here, you should try them,” Nacho quickly added. Jade realized that it was his way of telling Jade to agree, so she nodded.

“Sure, thanks.”

“Nacho?” Tuco asked as he set the plate of food down at a different table before pointing Jade to it. Without speaking, she sat in front of the plate of food.

“I’m cool,” he shook his head “no” and Jade wondered why he was allowed to skip out on the food but she wasn’t. Tuco didn’t ask him again and instead called back to the cook for more tacos. Jade took that moment he was distracted and she looked to Nacho.

“Eat,” he mouthed, pointing to the plate before her and she quickly picked up one of the greasy but still crunchy taco shells and took too large of a bite.

“¿Ella habla español?” she heard Tuco ask Nacho and tried not to roll her eyes, wondering if they were going to speak only Spanish while she sat there with her tacos.

“She doesn’t,” Nacho surprised her when he answered Tuco in English. “Well, she knows how to ask where the bathroom is in broken Spanish,” he added with a smirk.

“Shut up,” Jade interjected, finally chewing past her first bite of the taco, “It’s not broken.”

“It’s pretty broken,” Nacho teased but looked uneasy when Tuco sat across from Jade. She looked back to Tuco, who was leaning forward slightly with both of his arms on top of the table.

“Show me,” he said and Jade couldn’t help but feel nervous, glancing at Nacho for a quick moment.

“¿Dónde está el baño?” she asked, watching a smile grow on Tuco’s face.

“This is brilliant,” he looked to Nacho. “Where’d you find her?” Tuco turned to Nacho, speaking like Jade was some stray he had found on the streets and took in.

“Chance,” Nacho shrugged, completely avoiding mentioning that night at the Abandoned Power Plant. Jade made sure to note that mentally so she wouldn’t bring that night up either.

Tuco kept his smile before he asked Nacho in Spanish, “¿Entonces, a qué sabe la panocha a gringa?”

“No lo se,” Nacho responded quickly, and Jade noticed he suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“¿No lo has probado?” Tuco continued in Spanish, laughing after at whatever he had said. Jade, figuring that she had a chance to, took another bite out of her taco though she wasn’t very hungry.

“No,” Nacho surprised Jade by continuing in English. “She’s just a street dealer. That’s it.”

“Then why was she getting out of your van?” Tuco asked, in English this time as well, and Nacho didn’t respond right away.

“She needed a ride,” he stated but it was a weak response. Jade knew enough to know that he didn’t want Tuco to know about the party she was dealing at.

“To here?” Tuco lost his smile, and Jade finally spoke up.

“To the bus stop down the street. I was bugging him to pick me up but he said he was busy with this,” Jade tried answering, before realizing it was just as weak as when Nacho said they met by “chance”.

“Still talked me out of two bucks and half a ride,” Nacho added to back her up, and thankfully Tuco looked like he was more readily believing of her.

“La quieres bastante mal, huh?” Tuco laughed as he switched back to Spanish and Jade tried not to sigh. Then, Jade heard something recently familiar to her.

“Ella está saliendo con alguien,” Nacho responded, and, though she didn’t know what the words exactly meant, Jade realized it was similar to what he had told Carlos and Arturo a few weeks back at Tampico Furniture. “Quiero decir, hazlo si quieres,” Nacho added quickly and Tuco shook his head looking back to Jade.

“Naw,” Tuco shook his head. “Ella es una niña,” he said before looking to Jade once again and switching back to English. “How’s your food?”

“Pretty great, actually,” Jade smiled before taking another bite of her taco.

Before Tuco could say anything more to her he was called to the back of the restaurant for the second plate of tacos he had requested. Jade took that moment, while Tuco’s back was turned to her, to look over at Nacho. He sighed at her quietly before running a hand down his face. Jade shrugged at him with a shake of her head, unsure what he was so unnerved about and wondered if Tuco had said something worrying in Spanish. So far, Tuco hadn’t been violent, the most “violent” thing he had done was use the F-bomb outside.

“Here,” Nacho told her quietly, and she watched him grab one of the several rubber bands off the tabletop he was at. He leaned over, handing it to her and Jade couldn’t help but smile. She had completely forgotten she had asked him for a hair tie by that point. She set her taco down, wiping her right hand on her jeans before she leaned over to accept the rubber band.

“Thanks,” she told him in an equally quiet tone, before gathering up her long blonde hair and forcing it into a semi-passable high ponytail.

When Tuco had turned around, Jade looked back to her own plate of tacos and picked one up. She took another more manageable bite and wondered if Tuco would let her leave as soon as her second taco was finished.

Tuco reclaimed his seat across from Jade at her table, setting down a plate of his own with two nearly identical tacos to Jade’s, minus what she had already eaten from her own. It looked like Tuco wanted to talk to her but he didn’t get the chance as the door behind Jade swung open to the restaurant with a “ding!” from the bell on top. Jade turned around, remembering that Nacho had flipped the open sign to closed, but saw that it was some gangbanger who had walked in.

“Sup, Nacho?” he asked, before looking towards Tuco and Jade for the first time. “Tuco…” he greeted him as well but looked slightly confused by Jade’s presence. She quickly looked away and took another bite from her nearly finished taco, hoping to hide her presence with her food. Tuco, across from her, took a bite from his own taco but stared the new guy down like he was some kind of vermin.

“Sit down,” Nacho called for his attention and the gangbanger did just that sitting across from Nacho at the table he was at. He then pulled out a wad of dollar bills from his pants. His eyes were back on Jade again before he slid the bills across the table surface towards Nacho.

Jade noticed a slightly hostile shift from Nacho as well and decided it would be best to keep her eyes on her plate and hope that she could leave once she finished her food. Jade made it a point to ignore whatever small talk the gangbanger and Nacho made, as well as whatever Tuco said when he wasn’t just staring the guy down. Not until her name was said a few minutes later did Jade look up.

“Jade, think he’s good?”

“Huh?” she asked Tuco, before looking to Nacho for a quick moment.

“Do you think he’s good?” Tuco asked her and Jade looked back to him.

“Good at what?” she asked, wondering if just ignoring everyone and everything had been the best idea. She was quickly put at ease when Tuco laughed at her.

“Exactly,” he responded to her through his laughter before he completely switched emotions, looking annoyed and angry once more as he looked back to the gangbanger. It was as if a physical switch was flipped, how fast Tuco went from amused to pissed in a quarter of a second. “Get out,” he told the new guy and he quickly stood up from his seat across from Nacho.

“Aight, cool. Uh, thanks,” he nodded to Nacho and Tuco before awkwardly half waving at Jade.

“Bye,” she waved back with her free hand, the other holding her half-finished second taco.

“¿Ella es siempre tan amigable?” Tuco turned to Nacho and whatever he asked Nacho nodded.

“Yeah,” he agreed shortly but avoided looking at Jade, whatever he was agreeing to.

“¿Y honestamente no te gusta?,” Tuco pressed and Nacho shook his head, this time he didn’t look up from the bills he was organizing before he wrapped a rubber band around them and tossed them into a duffel bag near his feet.

Jade silently looked back to Tuco, just in time to see him pull a small baggie of white powder out of his shirt pocket. He noticed her watching and offered her some like he had offered her food. “Want some?”

Jade quickly, maybe too quickly, shook her head no. “I’m good, thanks,” she declined, hoping that Nacho wouldn’t say something about the random drugs in Tuco’s shirt pocket being good and that she should try some as he had with the tacos. Thankfully, neither of the men seemed to care, and Jade was left to finish off her second taco in peace. That’s is, until Tuco took a bump of the mystery powder and immediately slammed his fist on the table, making Jade jump in her seat and crush the taco she was holding.

“That’s smart, that’s really smart!” he practically yelled at her, before looking to Nacho, “That means we can keep her, she won’t screw us over.” Whatever he had taken it hit him fast and hard.

“If she was an addict she wouldn’t be dealing,” Nacho agreed, still calm as if nothing had changed and Jade tried to mimic how calm he looked, remembering what Nacho had said about Tuco’s “odd behavior”.

“How’s she deal with the tweakers, though?” Tuco suddenly asked, switching from amused to inquisitive as he near fully turned in his seat to face Nacho.

Nacho, in turn, simply shrugged. “She doesn’t seem to have a problem with them.”

“They mostly just want their next hit and don’t bother me much,” Jade added and Tuco looked back to her.

“You put them in their fucking places, that's what you do,” Tuco leaned over the table towards her, shoving his finger into the tabletop a few times like he was proving a point.

“Uh, sure,” Jade tried ignoring how dark his eyes had become and smiled at him. “Corey, Joel, and I never have any trouble with them. Like I said, they just want their next hit.”

“Who?” Tuco asked her, and despite Nacho shaking his head at her outside of Tuco’s peripheral vision, Jade answered him.

“My boyfriend and friend,” she said simply, remembering Nacho’s words earlier outside of the restaurant. She was talking too much, she already had said something she shouldn’t have.

“Who are Corey and Joel?” Tuco turned in his seat to ask Nacho as if he didn’t hear Jade’s response.

“They’re, uh…” Nacho started, and Jade saw the gears quickly working in his head. “They’re also working for Krazy. Same as Jade” he added quickly, before flashing her a quick glance.

“I wanna meet them,” he told Nacho before looking back to Jade.

“They’re just street dealers—” Nacho attempted to talk him out of it but Tuco cut him off.

“Krazy’s got a whole crew slinging for him and I have no idea about it? Nuh-uh,” Tuco rose his voice and Jade, worried about what can of worms she might have just opened up, kept her mouth shut.

“Fine,” Nacho was forced to agree.

“So,” Tuco regained Jade’s attention from where she was watching Nacho, who had pulled out his cell phone and began to quickly dial a number. “These other two like you?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘like me’,” Jade answered Tuco honestly as she sat back down. “I mean, for one, they’re guys so…” she started and Tuco openly laughed at her.

“Domingo,” Jade heard Nacho say and looked back to him, along with Tuco. “Necesito que traigas a Corey y Joel al restaurante.”

Jade didn’t need to know what Nacho had said in Spanish, she could piece together that Domingo was going to bring Corey and Joel and she didn’t know how she could deal with them along with Tuco while still trying to suppress what had happened the night previous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ya la levanté ... No, no la estoy follando.” — I already picked her up… No, I’m not screwing her.
> 
> “Jade estaba molesta. Algún pendejo la estaba molestando.” — Jade was upset. Some motherfucker was bothering her.
> 
> “Te llamaré mañana. Adiós.” — I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye.
> 
> “¿La pinche gringa está trabajando para Krazy-8?” — This white girl is working for Krazy-8?
> 
> “¿Ella habla español?” — Does she speak Spanish?
> 
> “¿Dónde está el baño?” — Where is the bathroom?
> 
> “¿Entonces, a qué sabe la panocha a gringa?” — So what does white-girl pussy taste like? (Because of course Tuco would tease Nacho like that 😂)
> 
> “No lo se.” — I don’t know.
> 
> “¿No lo has probado?” — You haven’t tried it?
> 
> “La quieres bastante mal, huh?” - You want her pretty bad, huh?
> 
> “Ella esta saliendo con alguien. Quiero decir, hazlo si quieres.” — She’s dating somebody. I mean, do it if you want.
> 
> “Ella es una niña.” — She’s a child.
> 
> “¿Ella es siempre tan amigable?” — Is she always this friendly?
> 
> “¿Y honestamente no te gusta?” — And you’re truly not into her?
> 
> “Necesito que traigas a Corey y Joel al restaurante.” — I need you to bring Corey and Joel to the restaurant.
> 
> Oh man, it has been two months? I'm sorry for the impromptu hiatus of this. I feel like so much has happened since the last update like burning myself out mentally and creatively, having not one but two Michael Mando height crises, accidentally facecasting all OCs in this for my boyfriend (do people even do that anymore? I guess if anyone is interested in what people look like let me know), Better Call Saul Season 5 wrapping, and the El Camino movie being released. Holy shit.
> 
> So, back to this fic... I won't even lie; I'm blaming Tuco's characterization on the delay. I finally sat down and forced myself to finish this last scene then realized I was only missing about 250 words and felt like an idiot. But! That doesn't mean I quit writing altogether, and I got a lot of other chapters/scenes fleshed out. Right now, this is sitting at about 111K words. I'll start working on the next scene (which is suffering from my same Tuco writing phobia) since the rest of it is complete, but I'm not sure if I'll get it out before December because of Nanowrimo coming up in a week. I'll be focusing pretty much all my creativity and free time on an original story, and that, unfortunately, means I'm putting everything else off the whole month. So technically, this impromptu hiatus is being extended until early December.
> 
> The last thing I need to mention is how fantastic everyone is who left Kudos and comments on this so far. Knowing other Nacho fans out there like this fic and what I'm writing is genuinely a fantastic feeling, and I love you all. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well, despite the delay.
> 
> Thank you for reading and thanks to my boyfriend for being my English to Spanish dictionary and beta reader.


	7. Unfortunate Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuco insists on meeting Corey and Joel but isn’t as impressed as he is with Jade. Nacho and Domingo, for peace of mind, give Jade new dealing restrictions, but it doesn’t stop trouble from finding her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Kailee Morgue's song "Unfortunate Soul".
> 
> This chapter is about 21 novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 39 minutes to read.
> 
> The spoiler warning for season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other real warnings, but maybe a quality warning for the actual writing in the first scene? It's part 2 of my Tucophobia and I'm so sick of looking at it. I just can't fix it right now, so if I'm not lazy I might edit it later on.
> 
> Also! I made some minor changed to chapter five because I realized I messed something up, can't say what it is here because it spoils a side plot? But I'll let you guys know maybe next chapter. It's not big enough or noticeable enough for a re-read but I figured I'd say something.
> 
> All Spanish in this chapter is translated in the notes at the end.

In the hour it took for Corey and Joel to get to El Michoacáno, Tuco’s behavior had become more eccentric. He had kept talking with Jade, asking her potentially dangerous questions like how long she had been dealing for Krazy-8 and how she got involved with him and Nacho. They weren’t exactly “short answer” questions, but Nacho would butt in if Jade said too much or struggled with an answer.

When a second street dealer had entered the restaurant, Tuco had already taken a second bump of whatever was in that baggie he had pulled out of his shirt’s pocket. Jade then watched silently, with her gut twisting in fear, when Tuco got in the third dealer’s face while Nacho was trying to count out his money.

Nacho just seemed to ignore it, so Jade tried to as well, while Tuco just stared the guy down like he was seeing into the dealer’s very soul.

“He’s good,” Nacho stated calmly, glancing up from the stack of money he just counted, before wrapping them up onto a large roll with one of the rubber bands on the tabletop.

“He good, Jade?” Tuco asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the dealer to look at her, and Jade wondered if this was going to become a thing, and dreaded the thought of finding out what would happen if she said “no.”

“He’s good, yeah,” Jade nodded and in an instant Tuco was back in his good mood, smiling and laughing at her with a point of his finger.

“She’s getting the hang of this, ese. You did good finding her,” Tuco looked back to Nacho who only nodded as he tossed the roll of bills into the duffel bag at his feet.

“Go,” Jade mouthed at the dealer, who was still sat in his seat with a confused look, staring at her like he didn’t understand what she had to do with anything. In all honesty, Jade didn’t even know what she had to do with anything. Regardless, while Tuco’s back was still turned towards her she jabbed her thumb at the door and he seemed to take the hint, standing up quickly and backing towards the door. He left without saying anything to Nacho or Tuco and only shot another confused look at Jade before taking off.

By the time the fourth had shown up and gave his cash to Nacho to count, Tuco’s mood swings had become more erratic and he insisted that Jade dance with him to some mariachi song that was currently playing on the radio playing from the kitchen. Jade tried feverishly denying him, but Tuco was persistent, and Nacho wasn’t much more persuasive. Afraid of what would happen if she flat out refused, Jade forced herself to stand up.

“I don’t know how to dance to this,” she admitted, crossing her arms, but Tuco only looked more excited by that.

“You move,” Tuco laughed at her and Jade forced a smile. “C’mon,” he held out his hand and Jade hesitated before taking it, fighting to keep her eyes on Tuco instead of looking to Nacho to silently beg for help. Jade had to fight to keep her smile when Tuco’s hands settled on her waist, and she kept repeating to herself that everything was fine and that she was having fun, while Tuco tried to show her how to move while he was completely high out of his mind.

Nacho remained in his seat and did a fairly good job of ignoring them when another street dealer came in to pay up. Jade realized that without Tuco trying to act like an alpha male, Nacho was able to get the dealers in and out of the store in about three minutes apiece. Because of this, and Jade figuring that if Nacho could get through the dealers quicker she could at least leave when he did, so keeping Tuco distracted with her horrible dancing seemed worth it.

When Jade thought she was finally getting the hang of dancing, the entrance to the restaurant opened, the bell dinging as usual, but when Jade looked over she didn’t see the lone gangbanger. Instead, she saw the dumbfounded looks on Corey, Joel, and Carlos’ faces. Domingo, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“The fuck are these fools?” Tuco’s good mood instantly vanished and he stopped dancing with Jade. She wanted to step away from him, but he kept his right hand wrapped around her back. Jade instead settled for crossing her arms tightly over her band shirt.

“Where’s Domingo?” Nacho voiced the same silent question Jade had, directing it sharply at Carlos.

“He told me to bring them, he’s stuck at Tampico trying to get on lunch early,” Carlos explained in his defense, looking from Tuco to Nacho, who sighed heavily.

“They’re Cory and Joel?” Tuco looked back to Jade, stepping away to point and raise an eyebrow at her. Silently, and with her arms still crossed, Jade nodded.

“¿Me estás bromeando?” Tuco asked moving towards Nacho and leaning down to place his hands on the tabletop and semi-level himself with him, as he was still in his seat.

“Ella es la persona más blanca que conozco, y estás enojada con ellos?” Nacho responded quickly, glancing back at Jade, who was standing in that same spot.

“¿Tiene más pegue que tu?” Tuco asked, laughing partway through, and Jade watched Nacho’s jaw tense.

“No me interesa,” Nacho responded to whatever Tuco asked him in an annoyed voice.

While Tuco was momentarily distracted with Nacho, his back to her, she seized the chance to run her finger across the front of her neck after looking back to Joel and Corey, meeting her boyfriend’s confused and very obviously jealous gaze. When she did that gesture, Corey and Joel both glanced at each other in worry. Carlos, who was still standing behind them at the entrance shook his head and pushed his way forward before taking a seat at a nearby table.

After Nacho’s words, Tuco looked back up to her friends as well, losing the teasing smile he had on his face before standing straight. “I don’t like them,” he stated before walking around the table Nacho was sat at.

“You don’t like them but you’re cool with Jade?” Nacho asked and she narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. He wasn’t helping at all.

“Should I not like Jade?” Tuco asked but kept his sights on Corey. Though he was shorter than her boyfriend, he was one thousand times more intimidating and ended up backing Corey into a chair, while Joel stood awkwardly in place.

“All of them are hustlers. They’ve been selling fast,” Nacho explained and Jade looked at the back of his head again, this time in confusion. Did she just hear him genuinely compliment Corey and Joel? Or did he just say that to protect her?

Tuco looked back to Nacho then, those same questions in his dilated eyes before they switched to Jade.

“That true?” he asked her.

“Of course. We rock at what we do,” Jade nodded, hoping she looked and sounded confident, but how close he was to Corey was starting to worry her.

Tuco looked at Carlos then, silently asking him the same question. “Lo que ella dijo,” he answered in Spanish, before looking to Joel and pointing to the seat across from him. “Sit.” Joel did as he was told, leaving Tuco and Jade the only ones left standing, but she was too nervous to sit back down, with the way he kept glancing at Corey and Joel with his eyebrows set in a deep, slightly hateful frown.

“Hey Tuco,” Jade said quickly, hoping she could distract him long enough for him to cool down about Corey and Joel. Next to her, she could almost feel the air around Nacho seize as he tensed, and he turned to give her a subtle “what the fuck” look. “I’m like, super thirsty,” she continued, trying to ignore Nacho. For a terrifying second, she thought her distraction wouldn’t work, but Tuco slowly started to look like he was calming down.

“Of course,” he looked like realization had washed over him. “Of course, follow me, what do you want?” he asked her, moving quickly around the tables so he could throw his arm around her shoulders and pull her along towards the kitchen.

“Uh, whatever. Water’s fine—”

“Bullshit. There’s cerveza in the cooler,” Tuco told her and her mind was thrown back to her first night with Nacho when he had told her the same thing. She had denied drinking then, but there was no way she could tell Tuco “no thanks”.

“Okay, sweet,” she nodded, glancing back at where Nacho was still sitting, and noted the worried expression on his face. Once she was dragged into the kitchen, she tore her eyes off Nacho and focused on the cooler Tuco was bringing her to.

“Tecate okay?” he asked her, sliding the glass door open and grabbing one out for her without waiting for an answer. While he popped the cap off of the bottle, using a nearby countertop, Jade looked over the rest of the nonalcoholic beverages in the cooler, including some Mexican sodas, bottled Coca Cola, and just plain plastic bottled water.

Distracting her from all the drinks she’d rather have, she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket and she quickly dug it out, hoping that it wouldn’t be one of her parents calling her. Instead, she saw an unknown number with no name. She decided to ignore the call and shoved the still vibrating phone back into her pocket.

“Jade,” Tuco called her attention back to himself, and the beer bottle he was holding out to her.

“Thanks,” she looked back to Tuco, and took the beer bottle from him, immediately bringing it to her lips as she told herself that it was only one beer, she’d be okay. As she drank, Tuco reached into the cooler to grab a bottle for himself before he closed the glass door again.

“Gracias, señor,” Tuco told the owner who was watching Jade with an air of suspicion. He probably remembered finding her asleep in his restaurant a few weeks back. Quickly, Jade averted her eyes and tilted the bottle back again against her lips before Tuco led her back to the tables where everyone else was. Nacho was counting out a stack of bills, which Jade assumed Carlos had given him. Before they had gotten back to the table, Jade also noticed a green van pulling up to the side of the restaurant and parking near Nacho’s Chevy van. Nacho had glanced out the window as well while organizing the bills, but Tuco didn’t seem to pay it any attention.

Tuco’s hand left Jade’s waist so he could pull the chair next to nacho out for him to sit and she took that moment to escape, calmly drinking her beer and walking to the table Corey had been intimidated into sitting at, near the restaurant’s entrance. She set her beer on the table between herself and Corey, wondering if Tuco would get pissed about her passing it off to her boyfriend, but she hoped that Domingo, who was getting out of the green van looking like a nervous wreck, would be enough of a distraction for him to notice. She looked back to Corey, who rose an eyebrow at her, both of them not willing to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the restaurant’s occupants with their own relationship bullshit. At least, not with Tuco in the room. With how upset he looked, he might not have cared about Nacho or Carlos being present.

“I’m sorry I’m late…” she looked up to Domingo as he quickly entered, speaking over the “ding!” from the bell on top of the door. He trailed off when the uncomfortable silence met him as well, and Jade watched him literally gulp.

“You wanna explain what the hell this is?” Tuco asked him after a brief staredown, and Domingo looked to Corey and Jade first, before turning to Joel across from Carlos at another table. Jade took that moment when Tuco was distracted to push her beer closer to Corey.

“Drink that,” she mouthed, and he reached for the beer with a glance to Tuco, who was still staring down Domingo.

“Uh,” he struggled for a response, looking to Nacho for help, and Jade sympathized with that feeling. Meanwhile, Corey picked the Tecate bottle off the table and started drinking it.

“All of it,” she mouthed when he tried to stop and he rose an eyebrow at her again. In turn, Jade only shrugged.

“How did you get a whole crew slinging for you overnight?” Tuco asked Domingo when he failed to come up with any type of answer on his own.

“They, uh—”

“Hey, sit down,” Nacho finally intervened, while Corey finished off Jade’s beer and he set it back on the tabletop, empty. “You three, go wait outside,” Nacho pointed to the three of them and Jade felt her stomach sink. She didn’t want to be alone with Joel and Corey, she didn’t want them to question why she was with Nacho in the first place. She stood from where she was sat, in unison with Joel and Corey but hesitated, trying to think of a way to stay inside. Coming up with nothing, she forced herself to turn and follow Corey out of the restaurant, Joel holding the door open for them.

Almost immediately as Joel let the door close, Corey rounded on Jade.

“What the hell—”

“Corey, don’t,” Jade interrupted him, quickly letting her happy façade slip, but it didn’t seem to deter him at all.

“What is this? Why are we here? The hell is that guy you were dancing with?”

“That’s, like, Nacho’s boss, dude. Chill out,” Joel glanced back into the restaurant through the window.

“Why are you dancing around with Nacho’s boss?” Corey asked, looking back to her from Joel and Jade shook her head, rubbing at her back. The Tylenol Nacho had given her earlier that day had been wearing off and she was starting to feel that fall she took off the roof again.

“Because he’s freaking crazy and you can’t just tell him no?” Jade shot back before sighing. She gave up on rubbing at her back and instead decided to take a seat right on the ground in front of the restaurant, using the curb between the foundation and parking lot like a short chair.

“This whole thing is crazy,” Joel mimicked her sigh before deciding to sit down next to her, leaving Corey standing in front of them with a frown and his arms crossed. “Carlos was pissed when he picked us up, he was complaining that we shouldn’t even be coming here.”

“Technically none of us should be,” Jade agreed, deciding not to mention it was her big mouth that had them here in the first place. “Domingo is supposed to deal with him for us.”

“So then Carlos came and got us but Nacho couldn’t stop on the way from your place after picking you up?” Corey asked her, poking holes into Jade’s story before she could even explain why she was at the restaurant first. She had hoped he wouldn’t even ask about that.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jade shrugged, hoping to avoid the question, and his silence after told her he’d drop it but was still suspicious. Whether he was actually going to drop the subject, or if he was trying to work out another way to corner Jade with his questions, she wouldn’t know. The door behind them opened, the same “ding!” sounding as before, and the four guys left inside filed out, Nacho holding the door open for Tuco, Carlos, and Domingo.

“Get in my van, I’ll take you two to Tampico,” Domingo was the first to speak, walking to where he had parked his green Tampico van on the side of the building.

“Not Jade?” Corey asked him, and Domingo stopped, looking from Corey and back to Jade inwardly sighed, realizing this was going to be another thing wedged between her and Corey now.

“She’s been up all night already,” Carlos answered him before walking up to Jade and offering his hand. Silently she accepted it, depending on him to stand and trying not to wince when she did. “I’ll drive you home, “ he told her and she nodded.

“All night?” Corey asked him, and Jade avoided looking over at him.

“She’s been dealing all night,” Tuco told him, obviously missing Corey’s confusion, “¿Dónde encontraste estos pinche pendejos?” he turned to Nacho before walking back into the restaurant. Nacho must have said something to him in the short time since Jade, Corey, and Joel were sent outside. He watched Tuco walk back into the restaurant, before glancing back to Carlos and then Corey, who was standing in his spot with his arms still crossed. Nacho looked to Jade last, his face softening slightly as if he was offering a silent apology.

“C’mon,” Carlos beckoned her, and Jade followed him to his white El Camino. She could already tell she was going to get so much shit for this from Corey.

~-----~

“Really?” Jade asked, her arms crossed as she looked away from the bench and to Domingo and Nacho. “I’m just supposed to sit here?”

“Well… yeah,” Domingo looked slightly nervous, most likely due to Nacho’s frown instead of Jade’s discontent.

“For how long?” Jade asked, her arms dropping to her side, “Forever?”

“Yeah, forever,” Nacho answered her quickly, keeping his frown but Jade could instantly tell he was being sarcastic, even without his next words. “We’ll get you a tent and there’s a Circle K down the road for food.”

Jade sighed, plopping down on the bench in front of them. “You guys are assholes,” she told them and Nacho actually lost his frown, laughing at her. “I’m serious, there’s like a park not even half a mile behind Tampico—”

“That’s in a neighborhood where you could get noticed,” Nacho told her, seriously this time.

“I can’t get noticed here?” Jade asked, again crossing her arms.

“These streets are dead, all the traffic’s on Menaul,” Domingo told her, “This is as close as I can get you to Tampico.”

“How come I can’t just deal outside your apartment building if you need me ‘close’?” Jade looked to Nacho.

“You think I’m at my apartment all day?” Nacho asked her back. “Look, it’s this or you start carrying a gun,” he explained and Jade’s shoulders fell.

“This is perfect, thanks,” she told him in monotone. “So you’re just gonna abandon me on a bench for hours and expect me to sell?”

“They’re going through Domingo,” Nacho told her before Doming also spoke up.

“I’ll text you when someone is gonna show up,” he told Jade.

“So… like, what, I’m a glorified vending machine then? Why don’t you just put a stupid vending machine here?”

Again, Nacho answered her with sarcasm. “I thought about it but you’re less conspicuous than a drug vending machine.” Jade almost smiled back at him but the thought of sitting on a bench for hours at a time didn’t seem very appealing at all. Instead, Jade only held her hand out to Domingo, silently signaling for him to give her the baggies of meth and bottle of pills. He stepped forward, after a quick glance to Nacho, pulling them out of his pockets and handing something over to Jade, but it wasn’t quite what she had expected. It was only baggies, maybe eight or so, half containing crystal and the other containing Oxy.

“Uh, what?” she looked up to Domingo’s face before looking to Nacho for answers instead.

“He’ll bring you more when you’re out,” Nacho said simply to her raised eyebrow.

“Fucking seriously? I’m literally a drug vending machine, that’s not even a joke.”

“Domingo, ve a esperar en mi van,” Nacho didn’t answer her.

“I’ll see you in a bit, Jade,” Domingo said instead and made for Nacho’s van that was parked across the street. Jade and Nacho watched him silently until he was out of earshot, and Nacho turned back around to face her on the bench.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Nacho told her seriously, crossing his arms while Jade leaned back on her bench and shoved the baggies of drugs into her separate pockets, meth on her right and Oxy on her left.

“If I didn’t have to do this you would have dropped me off at a park instead of chaining me to a bench,” Jade sighed, crossing her own arms when she had gotten the baggies separated and in her pockets.

“I meant this, dealing,” Nacho clarified and Jade’s frown deepened.

“Are you trying to get me to quit? Is this punishment for what happened at the party—?”

“Don’t even,” Nacho stopped her, “Don’t think that. This is… peace of mind for my sake, okay?”

“Your sake?” Jade scoffed. “Nacho, if you want me to quit dealing for you then just tell me instead of doing this.”

“It’s your choice. It’s still your choice if you want out,” he sighed, dropping his arms from his chest and placing them on his hips instead as he looked down at her.

“What about Corey and Joel?” Jade asked him and the only response she got from Nacho was his jaw tensing. “I’m doing this as long as they have to,” Jade told him again from the last time they had this conversation.

After a long moment of silence, Jade figured he wasn’t going to say anything more to her. Shortly after this thought crossed her mind, Nacho proved her wrong. “Call Domingo if anything happens. I’ll pick you up later around sunset.”

“Cool,” Jade sighed, watching as Nacho quickly turned heel and made for his van, leaving her alone.

~-----~

Her new spot wasn’t anything more than boring, to say the least. She had never thought drugs would be sold this way, but Nacho and Domingo had placed her on a bench barely a five-minute walk away from Tampico Furniture. She was out of sight from Menaul boulevard, down a small side street and in front of an old, presumingly unused or abandoned, brick building. Nearly every square foot of the wall behind her was tagged up and the windows were covered with boards.

For the past few days, Jade would sit on her bench for maybe five or six hours, and Domingo would text her to let her know who was coming and what they wanted from her. If it wasn’t shady drug addicts coming by, Jade felt like her “job” could have been done by the bench alone and a sign stating how much the drugs were.

The highlights of her days, or rather evenings and nights, were when someone would swing by to give her more drugs to sell and grab her cash. Mostly it would be Domingo walking down to her on his breaks, but sometimes Arturo or Carlos would drive by. Her favorite though, was when Nacho would stop by her bench. She wasn’t quite ready to admit that she exactly enjoyed his company, but they got along well enough and she could usually pester him into bringing her food or coffee.

One particular evening, several days into this boring routine, Jade heard her phone start ringing instead of the usual texts she would get. Checking the front screen on her flip phone, Jade realized she didn’t have the number saved in her phone. Unwilling to accidentally send Nacho or one of the other guys to her voice mail, she flipped the phone open and answered the call.

“Hello?” Jade answered her phone with hesitation.

“Jade?” a man’s voice came from the other end, something strikingly familiar with his tone. He carried a slightly angry or irritated cadence. Jade also realized it wasn’t Nacho or any of the other guys.

“Uh…” she began but the man didn’t allow her to answer.

“So, Jesus, you’re hard to get a hold of,” he told her and Jade felt a sickening sense of paranoia run down her spine. She looked up and down the dead street that she was on and didn’t spot any suspiciously parked vehicles or any pedestrians.

“Who’s this?” she asked and the man on the other end laughed.

“Seriously?” he asked her and Jade remained silent, debating on just hanging up. “This is Dylan.”

“… Dylan?” she repeated his name. She couldn’t remember a Dylan ever being mentioned to her.

“Yeah. Look—”

“Hey, Dylan? I’m working, I can’t talk now. Okay?” Jade suddenly interrupted him and pulled her phone away from her ear, quickly hanging up. She moved to her text messages quickly and started to type.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
hey do you know dylan

Jade sighed, setting her phone in her lap and waiting impatiently for a response, her knee bouncing nervously. When her phone began ringing again, her stomach sank. She saw the same unfamiliar number calling her. She ignored it quickly and a minute later Dylan was calling her again.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
nacho

She ignored Dylan’s two more calls immediately as she text Nacho again. When her phone went off again, she almost thought it was Dylan calling her a fifth time, but instead, it was a text message. Jade flipped her phone open quickly to view the message, however when she opened it, it was from Domingo instead.

From: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
black beanie, baggy teeshirt. 2 8s

Jade quickly responded, deciding to ask Domingo instead, since Nacho wasn’t responding.

To: Krazy8  
Text: 1/2  
hey do you know a dylan  
Text: 2/2  
he’s calling me

From: Krazy8  
Text:1/2  
no?  
Text:2/2  
u ok?

To: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
im good

Jade sighed and looked up and down the street again, finding herself still alone on her bench. She wondered if this next guy was Dylan? Then again Domingo probably would have asked how she knew him or what was going on. At least he had stopped trying to call her.

Still feeling paranoid, she slipped her headphones down to her neck and switched off her CD player in the middle of her Offspring Smash album. If anything, her batteries wouldn’t die on her today as they have been. She thought for a moment that she should really try to remind herself to bring extras along, but she only ever thought about this problem when it was occurring.

“Jade?” her head whipped around to her right when she heard her name called, paranoia spiking once more before she furrowed her eyebrows. To her surprise, Jesse Pinkman was walking up to her bench.

“Jesse?” she asked, before removing her headphones from around her neck. She left the CD player on the bench so she could stand up to greet him with a hug.

“What the hell, how are you? What’s up?” he asked as they quickly hugged and Jade heard her phone ringing again on the bench where she left it.

“I’m uh…” she moved to her phone quickly and saw exactly what she expected. Again, she ignored the unknown number calling her. “I’ve been good, keeping busy. Damn, I haven’t seen you since what, senior year prom? Graduation?”

“It’s been a while, yeah,” Jesse sat on the bench next to her CD player and Jade sat down as well, realizing that this was terrible timing for him to randomly show up.

“Hey, Jesse,” she sat down next to him. “I’m actually busy right now, I’m…” she trailed off, taking in his appearance. Mentally she checked off Domingo’s description as the realization hit her. “You smoke crystal?” she asked with a lowered voice and instantly Jesse’s smile fell from his face.

“Wait,” realization washed over Jesse as well and he checked up and down the street before sinking lower on the bench. “You’re dealing crystal?” he asked in return, “What the hell, dude?”

“What the hell yourself, you aren’t supposed to do this shit!” Jade responded in a similarly hushed tone.

“It's all the same. I figured you’d know that. You’re the one dealing,” Jesse defended himself and his habit.

Jade rose an eyebrow at him and said, “It’s not the same, but whatever. Two eights is a hundred.” She waited for Jesse to pull out the cash but he didn’t move.

“But… we’re old buddies,” he smiled again, this time much weaker than before.

“Really?” Jade asked. “It’s not my product and I don’t have extra cash to pay Domingo back,” she explained, and yet again her phone began ringing next to her on the bench. Jade sighed, rolling her eyes as she just let the phone ring this time.

“Not gonna get that?” Jesse asked and she shook her head. “You stiff a tweaker?” he asked and managed to get Jade to laugh.

“No, no one knows my number. Not sure who this dick is though, he’s been calling me, like, non-stop,” Jade admitted, leaning back into the bench they were on.

“Need some muscle? I know some guys,” Jesse offered, nudging her with his elbow.

“No, I think I’m good. Like I said, I don’t even know him.” Jade smiled again, “Thanks, Jesse.”

“No prob, we’re old buds,” Jesse told her, but still hadn’t made any sort of move to pay her.

“Are you busy?” she asked him suddenly, an idea popping into her head. “Like you’re not gonna run off with this somewhere or something?”

“Jesus, Jade, I’m not an addict,” Jesse laughed, rubbing at his face. “I’m free for a while.”

“Only this one time,” she pulled out what he was there to buy and handed it over. “Just… hang out with me for a while. It’s creepy today, what with that guy calling and everything,” she explained and Jesse took the baggies from her with wide eyes.

“Wait, you’re sure?” he asked, giving her a genuine chance to change her mind.

“Yeah. Just this once though. I’ll get shit for it but they pay me by the day so I’ll take it out of that,” Jade explained.

“Yeah man… sure, I’ll stay a while,” Jesse agreed. “Thanks, Jade.”

“No prob,” she smiled at him, hearing her phone ding with a new text. Flipping her phone open she finally saw a response from Nacho.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
No

“Great,” she mumbled, not bothering to reply to him and his caveman-esque response.

“That your stalker?” Jesse asked, unable to see the screen on her phone.

“No, it's my… uh… boss?” Jade looked over to him with a shrug.

“What, Krazy?” Jesse probed and Jade chuckled at him.

“No, he’s uh… like the supplier I guess? I don’t know the hierarchy of this business. I just know I’m on the bottom,” Jade explained and Jesse stuck his hands into his jean’s pockets.

“Oh cool. So like, what did you do to get this gig then?”

“Why? Are you interested? It’s not as good as it looks,” Jade shook her head. “Pretty much comes down to I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. This is kind of like reverse blackmail… does that make sense?”

Jesse gave her a blank stare for a moment before answering, “Nah. It doesn’t.”

“Like, I’m trying to get people to trust that I’ll stay quiet by incriminating myself. I guess…” Jade explained.

“Oh okay, so like you saw a murder or something then and you’re like ‘It’s all chill, yo, I’m good’?” Jesse asked nodding with a smile.

“Not a murder but yeah. Something like that,” Jade agreed with him.

“Sweet. And they set you up on this bench and you’re like your own business now,” Jesse continued and Jade rose her eyebrow again.

“Jesse, no.”

“No?” he kept his smile despite the look on Jade’s face.

“I just told you that this was a onetime thing. You’re paying whatever Domingo says from now on,” she pointed at the pocket he had stuffed the two baggies into.

“Yeah, yeah, I got you,” Jesse’s smile began to fade. “But I didn’t mean that.”

“What do you mean?” Jade prodded.

“I mean like…Okay so here’s the thing,” Jesse’s hands were out of his pockets now and he turned on the bench to better face her. “So my ‘rents are going out of town in, like, a few weeks and I was thinking I’d have a small get together with a couple of my buddies, right?” he began and Jade knew where this was going. She let him continue, however, hearing her phone ring once more. She looked down and ignored the call before realizing that it wasn’t the unknown number calling her but Nacho.

“…and like, you’re totally invited, no strings attached—”

“Hold on,” Jade held up a finger, quickly calling Nacho back. “Sorry,” she added, realizing she had cut Jesse off mid-sentence.

“Sorry?” Nacho asked, already on the other end. “That seemed deliberate. What’s up?”

“Um, nothing. No, it was an accident. Nothing’s up.”

“Creeper?” Jesse mouthed to Jade and she shook her head.

“Who’s Dylan?” Nacho asked on the other end, waiting for an explanation.

“What?” Jade asked, remembering what she had text him. “Oh no, it was a misunderstanding. Wrong number. I’m good.” Nacho was silent on the other end, forcing Jade and, in turn, Jesse, to wait.

“Sure, okay. I’m swinging by in fifteen. Want anything?” Nacho asked her. Typically she would ask for a million different things but right now she wanted him off her phone so she could let Jesse keep talking.

“Yeah— I mean no. No, I don’t want anything,” she stumbled through her words quickly. “Hey I gotta go I got a customer.” She hung up, not waiting for Nacho’s response.

“So you want me to supply your party, is that what I was hearing?” Jade asked Jesse, pocketing her phone.

“What? No! That’s not what I was asking, I was inviting you to hang out,” Jesse shook his head as he explained before laughing at her. “I got a guy who can bring some pills, but if you can, you know, bring anything that’d be cool too. Or you can chip in for booze if you want but like, that’s it. You still talk to anyone else from school?”

“Yeah, I’m still good friends with Tammy and Lena, and her boyfriend Taylor,” Jade watched the recognition flash across Jesse’s eyes as she said the names.

“Oh shit, yeah? They’re still together? And Tammy… Help me out,” he asked and Jade sighed.

“Tammy Whitley? She’s shy, metalhead, small, and a blonde. Or maybe she was dying her hair before we graduated, I can’t remember,” Jade explained, leaving out the key fact that Tammy had a major, heartbreaking crush on the very man before her for roughly three years in high school.

“Uh…” Jesse laughed after a moment. “I dunno man, but she’s invited too. She’s cool?”

“She’s cool,” Jade nodded, wondering if she’d even want to go to a party that involved drugs and alcohol. “Oh, I’m dating Corey. Remember him?” she continued on.

“Oh shit, Corey?” Jesse smiled again, clapping his hands together in excitement. “I haven’t heard from him in ages. What about Joel?”

“Yeah, him too. They’re best friends still.”

“And you’re dating Corey too? Oh shit, I fell outa the loop!” Jesse laughed. “What happened?”

“I know, right? I don’t talk to a lot of people we went to school with now. My friends went from like five hundred to five overnight,” Jade agreed.

“Right? Nobody told us this crap when we were still in school,” Jesse sighed himself. “So, yeah, invite all of them too, or give me their numbers?” he pulled out his phone.

Jade pulled hers back out as well, and, as if on cue, the unknown number was calling her again. “Hold on,” she told Jesse, again letting the phone ring.

“Want me to answer? Tell him to fuck off?” Jesse suggested and Jade wanted to laugh. Instead, she smiled at Jesse.

“No, I’m good. Give me your number instead and I’ll text it to them. My ‘boss’ is heading over and I’d rather keep you out of this,” Jade told Jesse.

“Okay cool. It’s all good,” Jesse said and rattled off his seven digits to Jade once her phone stopped ringing.

“I’ll get the numbers to you. Text me more info about the party, okay?” Jade and Jesse both stood up and she hugged him again.

“Sure thing,” Jesse smiled at her again. “Thanks for the uh… freebie,” he patted his jean’s front pocket.

“No problem, just don’t smoke it all at once,” Jade crossed her arms, watching Jesse wave before sitting back down on her bench. She started a new text to her friends then, starting with Tammy.

To: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
hey you still got a thing for jesse pinkman

She text Jesse next, before texting the rest of her friends.

To: Pinkman  
Text: 1/1  
this is jade :) don’t tell anyone what we just did

To: <3Corey, Lenabean, Joelbear, Tayluh  
Text: 1/1  
ran into pinkman just now heres his number 505 148 3369 hit him up

Jade flipped her phone closed then and leaned back on her bench. Her paranoia had practically vanished after her visit with Jesse and Jade was contemplating putting her headphones back on, but Nacho was due by any minute now.

From: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
no why?

To: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
dont lie

Jade smiled at her friend but her expression turned sour when the unknown number started calling her once again.

“Give it up dude,” she mumbled, choosing to ignore the call this time, since pretending she didn’t have it with her wasn’t working. This time, however, he called back within a few seconds of her ignoring his call. Jade tried ignoring the call again and the same thing happened. She sighed, her phone becoming virtually unusable as she watched this mysterious “Dylan” call her several more times back to back. On his fourth attempt in a row, and after several unreadable texts from her friends that she had received while he was calling, Jade grew impatient enough to try and answer her phone again. She was mustering up the courage to tell this Dylan off when Nacho pulled up in his van, stopping in the street in front of her bench.

“Get in,” he nodded his head towards the passenger door.

“Am I done?” Jade asked, trying to silence her phone between the calls.

“What’s up with that?” Nacho didn’t answer her as Jade stood up, grabbing up her things.

“Its nothing,” she answered, shoving her silenced phone into her pocket and walked around the front of the van to hop into the passenger seat. Nacho had moved a paper bag out of her seat and handed it to her once she closed the van’s door and buckled in. “I told you I was okay,” she accepted the bag, opening it up to find typical fast food; a burger and fries. She noticed a foam cup in one of the van’s drink holders as well.

“And that was an obvious lie. What’s up?” he asked her, watching her unceremoniously shove fries into her mouth.

“Huh?” she asked, taking the cup and washing down the salt and grease in her mouth with ridiculously sweet soda.

“You’re acting strange. Tell me what’s going on,” Nacho didn’t so much as ask but demand from her.

“Um…” she cleared her mouth, swallowing hard. “Nothing. Everything’s good. Just… I dunno kind of a crap day.” Nacho watched her for a moment before silently accepting her answer and driving off towards Tampico Furniture.

As normal, Nacho drove around to the loading docks out back and parked his van. Jade had finished the fries by then but hadn’t touched the burger. She rolled the top of the paper bag down and left it on her seat in the van as Nacho opened the door for her to climb out.

“Hey Jade,” they were greeted by Domingo at one of the open bays, “Nacho.” He lowered his hand to help Jade up and Nacho jumped up with ease behind her.

“Hey,” she greeted him with a smile. “Are you closed early?” Jade asked him.

“Yeah, it’s been shit slow today,” he admitted before Nacho said something in Spanish, too fast for Jade to even catch. When Domingo responded Jade eyed them both and huffed, a feeling creeping through her that they were talking about her. Without waiting for them to follow, Jade crossed her arms and made her way through the back of Tampico Furniture towards the office. When she opened the door she half expected to see Joel or her boyfriend inside but it was empty. She shut the door behind her and pulled the cash, baggies, and her phone out of her pockets, completely emptying them.

Tossing the cash and baggies on the desk she remembered Jesse’s missing hundred dollars and hoped that neither Domingo nor Nacho would care much, if at all. She flipped her phone open then and realized that this mystery Dylan had called her seven more times between Nacho picking her up and her arrival in the office. Her gut clenched and Jade suddenly wondered if this guy would actually stop harassing her. What if this continued all night? She had new texts also, and though she knew she had just mass text her friends, she was afraid to check them in case this unknown number had started texting her as well.

Jade jumped and snapped her phone shut when the door to the office opened and Domingo led Nacho inside.

“What’s that look for?” Domingo nearly laughed at her but Nacho eyed her as he had been since picking her up.

“I’m a hundred short but take it out of what you’ll pay me,” she answered quickly, Jade would rather think about that instead of Dylan.

“What happened?” Domingo lost his smile and his eyebrows wrinkled his forehead as they pressed together in a deep frown.

“Nothing—”

“Who stiffed you?” Nacho asked her, already expecting that lie from her.

“What? No one,” Jade answered quickly and shoved her phone in her pocket. “It’s not gonna happen again, it was a one-time thing.”

Domingo was silent for a moment, looking to Nacho for his reaction but all he did was raise his scarred eyebrow. “Who?” he turned back to Jade, causing her to cross her arms defensively.

“Why?” she asked them, suddenly worried she’d get Jesse into trouble. “You’re not missing money, I told you to take it out of what you’re paying me.”

“Was it Pinkman?” Domingo asked and Jade inhaled sharply.

“No.” With her quick answer, she had probably given it away but again Domingo and Nacho were silent. “What?” she asked then and Domingo looked back to Nacho.

“Está bien, déjalo ir,” Nacho told him and Jade bit her tongue. They were getting in a habit of doing this around her now. “Go wait out there,” he directed her and Jade wanted to argue but did as she was told. The sooner this day was over the better.

Without a word, Jade moved past them both and quickly left the office, closing the door behind her before making her way towards the couch section of the furniture store. As if she owned it, she plopped down on an overstuffed love seat and propped her feet up on the back, head resting on one of the arms. She pulled her cell phone out then and flipped it open. She felt relieved when there were no more missed calls than before, and Jade felt more confident opening up her texts. The first was from Tammy, Jade noticed, as she worked her way through them.

From: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
havent thought of him in a year

To: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
text him <3 505 148 3369

From: Tayluh  
Text: 1/1  
PINKMANNNNNNN YES

To: Tayluh  
Text: 1/1  
i know! lol

From: Pinkman  
Text: 1/1  
;) its our secret shh

As Jade read Jesse’s text, not yet through all of them on her phone, Tammy had text her back. Almost immediately after, however, a call from Dylan’s unknown number popped up on her screen.  
Jade almost felt the urge to finally answer and yell at the guy but, she felt too nervous to do so. She was still clinging to the hope that he would stop and just disappear.

Jade didn’t ignore the call this time and let it ring through. When it finally ended she was relieved when a new call didn’t pop up seconds later. Jade opened her texts back up and saw Tammy’s reply first, before the other unread texts she had.

From: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
no none of this <3 he doesnt know me

To: TimTam  
Text: 1/2  
just text him i told him all you guys would so it isnt weird  
Text: 2/2  
Do it :)

After responding to her, Jade moved on to the next unread message.

From: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
wtf? was he buying?

To: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
i told him not to say anything so same 2 u :p

Jade had barely gotten to send the message to Corey when Dylan was calling her again. She sat up this time, twisting and swinging her legs down off the back of the couch so that she was sitting normally with her feet on the ground. She took in a determined breath, deciding again to try and tell him off.

Quickly, she pressed the answer button and started speaking. “Look—”

“Jesus that was rude,” Dylan cut her off immediately. “Are you done ‘working’?” he asked with a tone that plainly stated he didn’t believe her.

“No, I…” Jade tried to answer before regaining her bearings. “You need to stop calling me.”

“Okay,” he laughed at her, “Whatever.”

“I—I’m serious,” she didn’t sound any more angry or upset like she wanted to, she sounded nervous. “You called me like thirty times this past hour, that’s psycho.”

Dylan laughed at her again. “Psycho? Jade, shut up. You’re being fucking rude.”

“I don’t even know you. Just leave me alone, okay?” she rose her voice in a desperate plea, one of her knees bouncing again with anxiety.

He was quiet for a few seconds on the other end and Jade was close to just hanging up on him. “You… really? You don’t remember? Shit, you really are a slut.”

That word was like a slap to the face, forcing her to remember. In an instant, Jade’s mouth went dry and she felt her stomach try to lurch into her throat. She knew exactly who this was now.

“I didn’t…” she croaked, “I never gave you my…”

“I took it. Could barely remember all of it and I guessed the area code. Lucky you’re local,” he explained raising more questions for Jade. What did he mean he took her phone number? How could he just take it? Where did he take it from?

“Don’t— don’t call me again. I don’t want you to call me,” Jade forced out before pulling the phone away from her ear and hanging up on him. Her whole body was shaking, her heart was pounding in her chest and her stomach was still raging, trying to escape.

“Jade?” she heard and her head whipped around to see Nacho standing to her right, just out of her peripheral vision.

“Yeah?” she cleared her throat, stopping her knee from bouncing. He didn’t sound suspicious like he had earlier, and he wasn’t looking at her like he was in the office with Domingo. Instead, his voice was softer and he looked concerned. It reminded Jade of that night he had picked her up from the college party.

“Was that the guy who owes you money?” he asked her and Jade, biting her lip, shook her head no.

“I let Pinkman take two eights but I told him it was a one-time thing. We went to high school together. I just don’t want you or Domingo to get pissed at him,” Jade explained with a shaking voice.

“But that wasn’t him?” Nacho slowly walked around to lean on the back of the couch in front of her, pointing at her phone.

“No,” she answered him.

“Then who?” Nacho’s eyebrows rose slightly with his question and at that moment Jade’s phone began silently ringing, the front screen lighting up with Dylan’s unknown number. “Give that to me,” he asked, holding out his hand and stepping forward.

“I’m just gonna let it—Nacho, wait please!” In a split second, he had reached down to grab her phone, answering before Jade could finish her plea for him not to.

“Who is this?” Nacho answered, his voice changing from concerned to intimidating in a heartbeat. Jade was standing now, staring into Nacho’s face but he wasn’t looking at her. “No, I asked you a question. Who are you?” Nacho continued after a moment, more venom filling his voice and Jade thought her knees might give out. She sat down again to avoid falling and watched Nacho pull her phone away from his ear, flipping it closed with a snap.

“Who’s calling you?” Nacho asked her again, a hint of rage still in his voice. It forced Jade to answer quickly and honestly.

“Dylan. I uh, I think he’s from that party that, uh, he—”

“How did he get your number?” Nacho cut her off, understanding immediately who she meant.

“He said he took it. I—I don’t know,” she answered and took a deep breath when she felt her eyes begin to sting with tears. She already must look like a nervous wreck, and she’d be damned if she started crying again in front of Nacho.

He breathed out a curse in Spanish and then flipped her phone open again, pressing buttons.

“What are you doing?” she asked, suddenly alarmed.

“He’s not doing this to you,” Nacho shook his head, bringing the phone back up to his ear and Jade realized that he was calling Dylan back.

“Nacho, please,” Jade begged but it was already too late. Dylan had already answered the call.

“Shut up and listen to me carefully. If you call this number again, if Jade tells me you’re harassing her, if you make contact with her in any way, I will find you. Do you understand me?” He was pacing around the couches now and Jade looked back to where the office was. Domingo hadn’t come out yet and Nacho was speaking too low and calm for him to hear what was going on.

“I will rip your tongue out of your mouth if you keep talking like that. Try me.” Nacho didn’t wait for a reply before he pulled the phone away from his ear and ended the call. Jade watched in silent horror as he unsilenced her phone, she heard it beep signaling the ringer was back on. “You’ve got about a dozen texts,” Nacho told her, flipping the phone closed and he walked over to her, handing the cell phone back. Jade took it back without a single word, so he continued. “You gotta tell guys like that you don’t want their attention,” he told her, crossing his arms.

“I did,” Jade answered quietly.

“Doesn’t work if you say it the way you did. I heard you, and that voice you used is like telling guys like him to keep harassing you because you won’t do anything about it,” he explained. Jade looked away from his intense stare, blue eyes moving down at her phone in her hand so she didn’t have to answer him. “Carlos is bringing Corey and Joel in about ten minutes,” Nacho sighed and took a seat next to her on the couch. He probably told her to take her mind off of what just happened but Jade didn’t think she could deal with them at the moment, especially not Corey.

“Can you drive me home?” she spoke up suddenly and Nacho looked over to her.

“Now?” he asked, sounding a bit surprised that she had asked.

“Please,” she added and he was quiet for a brief moment before nodding.

“Yeah, sure,” he agreed and Jade stood up from the couch quickly, shoving her phone back into her jeans. Nacho got back up and followed her back through the furniture store towards the office and warehouse.

“Domingo,” he called, “Voy a llevarla a casa. Dile a Carlos que me llame.”

“Okay, Nacho. Later Jade!” he called and she halfheartedly waved at him.

Despite having followed her, Nacho reached the open dock door first and jumped down, offering his hand to Jade for assistance. She accepted and hopped off the dock after him, now following Nacho to his van. No words were shared as he opened the passenger door for her and they were both quiet as he got in the driver’s seat and left the Tampico Furniture store. They were already on Menaul Boulevard before Nacho even tried to say something to her.

“Are you alright?” he spoke while keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them, one hand on the top of his steering wheel and the other arm leaning against the driver’s door.

“Yeah,” Jade answered briefly, glancing at him and back out her window.

Silence fell over them again and Jade heard Nacho sigh. “You didn’t want to see your boyfriend?” A twinge of guilt stabbed at her gut and Jade stayed quiet. While waiting for her response, Nacho tapped his thumb against the steering wheel. “Jade?” he prompted after only a moment.

“I just… I dunno,” she told him. She somehow knew he’d give her crap for it or tell her she was wrong to feel guilty, so she didn’t want to tell him. He wouldn’t understand.

“Do you…” he started and Jade glanced to him, actually seeing him struggle with his words. “Do you want to—”

“I just wanna go home,” she told him flatly, unsure of what Nacho was going to ask her.

“You’ll be okay?” he questioned and, while staring out her window she answered in monotone.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

He didn’t try to talk to her after that until he had stopped his van at a stop sign in her neighborhood, just a few houses down from her own. “Do you want me to drop you off closer?” he asked her and, already unbuckling her seatbelt, Jade looked over to him as she grabbed her drink from the van’s cup holder.

“No this is fine,” she told him before opening the glove box to grab out her wallet and keys. She shoved them into her jeans pockets before turning to Nacho, expecting him to be holding out the roll of cash like usual. He had it in his hands but they were held in his lap, the van now in park.

“How long has he been—?”

“Just today,” Jade answered him quickly, trying to let her tone tell him she didn’t want to talk about it.

He was silent, searching her face for a moment before saying, “Tell me if he keeps calling you.”

“So you can 'find him'?” Jade questioned, repeating what he had said earlier in Tampico Furniture. She hadn’t meant to sound upset, but it still prompted a negative response from Nacho.

“Why are you protecting that creep?” he asked her, mirroring her sour tone, and Jade snapped her mouth shut while her eyes grew slightly wider. He sighed heavily, seeing her reaction and slumped in his seat. “I don’t know who he is,” Nacho admitted, his face falling into a frown. “I don’t know where he is, I don’t even know what he looks like. He just needed to know that he can’t do what he was doing.”

“He hasn’t called back, so I guess it worked,” Jade told him and he finally handed her the cash in his hands, almost freeing her. When she grabbed for it, though, Nacho kept his grip tight.

“Promise me you’ll tell me if he calls you again,” Nacho told her.

“Nacho, please—”

“Jade, promise you’ll tell me. Okay?” Nacho told her again and Jade sighed.

“Fine,” she answered, trying to take the cash again but her answer wasn’t enough for him. “I promise,” she added and he finally let the cash slip out of his fingers.

“I’ll text you later,” he told her as she turned to get out of the van, the cash in her pocket and her fast food in her hands.

“Okay,” she told him slipping out of the passenger seat before turning around to close the door.

“Do you want me to stay out here tonight?” Nacho asked before she could.

“No, I’ll be fine,” she answered quickly before she added, “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” Nacho sighed in response, and she closed the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “¿Me estás bromeando?” — Are you kidding me?
> 
> “Ella es la persona más blanca que conozco, y estás enojada con ellos?” — She is the whitest person I know, and you’re mad about them?
> 
> “¿Tiene más pegue que tu?” — He’s got more game than you?
> 
> “No me interesa.” — I’m not interested.
> 
> “Lo que ella dijo.” — What she said.
> 
> “Gracias señor.” — Thank you, sir.
> 
> “¿Dónde encontraste estos pinche pendejos?” — Where’d you find these fucking idiots?
> 
> “Domingo, ve a esperar en mi van.” — Domingo, go wait in my van.
> 
> “Está bien, déjalo ir.” — It’s fine, let it go.
> 
> “Voy a llevarla a casa. Dile a Carlos que me llame.” — I’m taking her home. Tell Carlos to call me.
> 
> I'm so excited to be posting this again. I was really missing Nacho and Jade during Nanowrimo. The good news is I only have a few more scattered scenes to finish up before I'll have like three or four chapters written and ready to be edited/beta read. The bad news is work is crazy, so it's harder to write there, plus Star Wars and Christmas are taking up a lot of my free time. I'm hoping to have one more chapter out before December is over, and I'll try to stick to two chapters in January and February also in order to avoid any more impromptu hiatuses before Better call Saul season five (February 23rd, it's happening finally!).
> 
> Also, the whole reason Jade's 19 and way younger than Nacho, Jesse Pinkman _finally_ shows up. I can't wait to get to more of his part in this :D
> 
> Thanks again to my boyfriend for being the beta on this chapter, and thank you all so much for reading it!


	8. Self Esteem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dylan doesn’t heed Nacho’s warning. Jade’s life starts slowly unraveling and she begins cutting herself off from her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to The Offspring's song "Self Esteem".
> 
> This chapter is about 18 novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 33 minutes to read.
> 
> As always, the spoiler warning for season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other content warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Also, no Spanish in this chapter.

The peace that came after Nacho’s threats didn’t last very long. That night, sometime after three in the morning, ringing from her cell phone had woken up not Jade, but her little brother Charlie. By the time Jade had come to, Charlie had already slammed her bedroom door open, turned her lights on, and loudly exclaimed, “Who the hell is calling you so much?!”

“Huh?” Jade jumped slightly from the sudden intrusion and opened her eyes long enough to see her brother walking towards where she had her cell phone charging on the edge of her bed. “Hey!” she sat up quickly when she saw her brother grab her phone and flip it open. “What are you doing? Get out!” she yelled at him, snatching her phone away before he could answer the call.

“Answer your damn phone!” he yelled back at her. Jade looked down at her phone then, as the current call stopped, and saw that she had seven missed calls. Immediately, Jade’s stomach sank.

“What is going on?” she heard her father asking tiredly at her bedroom door. She and Charlie looked towards the doorway to find their dad leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over a JP Wynne tee-shirt.

“Her phone’s been ringing constantly for, like, ten minutes,” Charlie complained.

“Dad, get him out of my room,” Jade argued before he could even take a breath in to respond to his son.

“Thirty minutes actually,” he sighed, “Go back to bed, son.”

“Turn your stupid phone off or something,” Charlie whined before walking back towards the doorway.

“Shut up, you’re on summer vacation,” Jade chided as he made his way towards her bedroom door. Before he could get past their father, Jade’s phone began ringing.

“Turn it off!” Charlie stopped pointing at her phone in her right hand. Her father simply sighed and looked like he was waiting for Jade to answer the phone.

She already felt sick but forced herself to flip her phone open and answer the call from who she knew would be Dylan. “Hello?” she asked, hoping her voice would only come across as sleepy and not terrified.

“Jesus, you finally woke up?” she recognized Dylan’s voice on the other end.

“S-sorry, you must have the wrong number,” Jade said quickly before Dylan could say anything more to her. She pulled her phone away and ended the call, before quickly silencing her phone. “Someone speaking, like, Chinese or something,” Jade looked up to her brother and father.

“Whatever,” Charlie sighed before finally going back to his own room. Her father, however, stayed in her doorway.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked her, looking more concerned than annoyed as Charlie had been.

“Yeah, I’m fine dad,” Jade lied quickly, trying to cement it in with a smile.

“Okay…” her father still saw through her façade. “You know you can talk to me if something is up, right?”

“Dad, I’m fine,” she reiterated, trying to force laughter. “And you know that counselor BS doesn’t work on your own kids, right?”

“Gotcha,” her father winked with a smile, supposedly convinced now by Jade’s act. “I’ll see you—” he stopped, obviously going to say “in the morning”. Instead, he changed his sentence to, “I’ll see you in the afternoon. Try not to sleep past two.”

“Sure thing, night dad.” Jade kept her smile up until he had turned the light off and closed her bedroom door. Almost immediately after, Jade sighed her shoulders deflating and her smile sliding off her face as she looked back to her phone. In that short span of time, Dylan had already called her back two more times.

Jade sat in darkness, staring at the notification on her phone before she remembered the promise she had made Nacho almost a week ago. She navigated quickly to her texts and pulled Nacho up, but barely got the word “hey” typed on the screen before pausing. Did it really matter? Nacho had told her he had no clue who Dylan even was. And if Nacho did find him, what would he do, just kill him? Did Nacho actually just go around killing people?

As annoying and frightening Dylan’s incessant texts and calls were, they weren’t punishable by death. Instead of continuing the text, she discarded it and flipped her phone shut, before sitting once more in darkness, unable to fall back asleep.

~-----~

Nacho had asked her to go with him to El Michoacáno again earlier in the day. Apparently, she made a good impression on Tuco, and the week previous he had asked about her. Nacho said she chilled him out, and since it wasn’t a frightening first-time introduction to the man, Jade agreed. The restaurant itself wasn’t bad. She got to eat awesome tacos again, got more dancing lessons from Tuco, and for a few brief hours forgot about Dylan. While sitting on her bench after the fact, she figured she should have tried to bargain with Nacho so she didn’t have to deal that night, or at least let her walk around to a few parks like she used to do.

It had been a slow night anyway, both for dealing and for Dylan harassing her. The first time he had called her in hours she was in the middle of her second deal in a total of two hours sitting on her bench.

“Asshole,” Jade mumbled, watching Dylan’s number pop onto her screen while she pulled an eight out of her pants pocket.

“What?” the guy next to her asked and Jade quickly looked up from her phone.

“Oh—! Shit, not you. It’s my phone,” she nodded, handing the baggie of crystal over to him, “This jackass keeps calling me. I’m sorry,” she explained quickly, giving him a sheepish smile after, and the guy rose an eyebrow at her. This was maybe the second or third time he had bought from her since she was confined to her bench, and they never really spoke outside the typical meth-dealing dialog.

“Uh, okay,” he said and stood up, looking like he was going to walk away from the situation altogether. He had his meth, and that’s what all the junkies ever seemed to care about. Instead of walking off, however, Jade watched him take a couple steps before stopping. “I mean, why don’t you tell him off instead of just letting him call you over and over?” he turned around.

“He, um,” Jade started, shifting in her seat. “He doesn’t listen very well,” she explained to her customer.

“Do you have to see him? Do you hang out?” the guy asked next and Jade shook her head, the thought of having to see Dylan again making her skin crawl. “Then just tell him to fuck off. It's over the phone and its just words,” he shrugged at Jade.

“I tried that already, trust me,” Jade leaned back on her bench with a sigh, her eyes wandering back to her phone. For the moment it had gone silent, no longer vibrating on her thigh.

“Did you mean it, though?” he asked her, echoing what Nacho had told her the first day that Dylan had become a problem for her.

“Uh,” Jade started, “I mean—”

“Just tell him to fuck off,” the guy shrugged again before turning around walking back towards Menaul Boulevard, quickly becoming obscured by the abandoned brick building.

That was easier said than done, Jade figured, her blue eyes dropping to her phone in her lap once he was out of sight. As if on queue it started ringing again. Without much thought, Jade quickly snatched it from her lap and actually answered before her brain fully caught up with her new determination to get Dylan off her back.

“…Jade?” she heard his voice come through her phone and it seemed to snap her brain back into action.

“Holy shit— I mean, seriously?” she started off weak, briefly thinking she should have thought through exactly how to tell Dylan to fuck off before actually doing it. “This is— This is insane, how much you’ve called me is fucking ridiculous. I don’t want to talk to you, so stop calling me. Fuck.”

“… Are you done?” she heard Dylan calmly ask her after a short silence, where she had thought he had actually hung up on her.

“What? No, no I’m not done, you’re done. You… you need to stop calling me, okay? Lose my number and fuck off,” she briefly lost her conviction but regained it and the sudden authority she had found. 

“This doesn’t sound very well-rehearsed. Is it?” Dylan asked her, chuckling after and Jade’s mouth nearly fell open.

“Uh, I—” she tried to start again, but he already cut her off.

“Kinda cute, how pissed you sounded right now. Figured you’d have a speech or something prepared already.”

“I— no, I um,” Jade couldn’t find her voice again, not after how unfazed Dylan seemed.

“Look,” he continued, “What are you doing right now? Are you busy?”

“Dude, fuck you, I’m not— Stop calling me. I’m not talking to you, just stop calling me.” She had a feeling she should have hung up there, but this whole confrontation thing had gone to shit already, and if it was going to be salvageable, she didn’t want to back out and hide, she wanted him to say he’d stop calling her. Even if that was a lie and he didn’t mean it.

“Fuck me?” he asked, scoffing in annoyance. “Fine. Where are you? I can pick you up?” he offered and Jade felt her stomach twisting like it did when he had wedged his thigh between hers at the party. Jade brought her phone away from her ear, holding it in her lap as she looked up to the cloudless night sky, taking in a deep breath. “It’s just words,” she told herself. “It’s just words, he’s not here.” Jade felt like it helped regain her composure, and with another deep breath, she brought her phone back up to her ear, ready to try again.

“Jade?” he was already asking since she had given him no response.

“Shut up,” she told him sharply, trying to make herself sound angrier. It was probably impossible, but she was shooting for that venomous tone Nacho had when he had spoken with Dylan a few weeks back when this all started. “I’m serious, you need to fucking stop calling me. I don’t want to talk to you, I thought not answering your thousands of calls would have proved that.”

“You’re talking to me right now,” he told her smugly, and Jade had to force herself not to picture him smiling.

“I am not talking to you, I’m telling you to step in front of a goddamn bus you jackass!” she rose her voice, trying not to feel out of her element. She was never like this, with anyone. Jade had had arguments before, but nothing to this measure.

“Not gonna lie, you sound pretty adorable when you’re trying to sound pissed.”

Her whole confidence and this idea of telling Dylan to leave her alone once and for all immediately shattered. Her eyes began to sting and she quickly squeezed them shut to keep from crying.

“Look, tell me where to pick you up and while I’m on my way you can try thinking of something better to say,” Dylan suggested.

“I’m not telling you where I am. I’m telling you to leave me alone,” Jade tried to speak evenly, but her voice was soft and cracked twice.

“Listen to you,” he noticed easily, laughing into the receiver of his phone. “You’re probably trembling right now. Is this that hard for you?”

It was that hard, and she was trembling. Jade balled her left hand into a tight fist in her lap to try and keep it from shaking.

“Tell me you’ll stop calling me,” she told him, clearing her throat. He already knew she was scared, so that didn’t matter.

“Tell me where you are and I won’t have to call you,” Dylan countered.

He had won, she knew it and she knew that he knew it as well. Though she had told herself she wouldn’t, Jade pulled the phone away from her ear, her vision blurry as she pressed the end call button on her phone. She stared at the screen of her open phone, anticipating the moment when Dylan realized she hung up and called her back, but there was a part of her desperately hoping he’d leave her alone, if just for a couple hours.

Of course, she wasn’t that lucky. Half a minute hadn’t even passed when her phone started vibrating in her hand, the screen stating Dylan was calling her back. A strangled cry left Jade as her shoulder’s slumped forward and her forehead landed in her left hand. She had failed, she couldn’t just scare this guy off. Jade figured she should have known as much since Nacho couldn’t even scare him off.

An idea did cross her mind though, as Dylan’s first call went unanswered and he started calling a second time. She did have the money to buy a new phone and get a new number, but how would she explain that to her friends and family? They’d all ask her why she didn’t just keep her sim card and the same phone number. Even worse, how would she explain that to Nacho without revealing that she had broken her promise to him?

None of that seemed to matter when Dylan started calling her a third time. In a frightened panic, Jade took the two halves of her phone in each hand and started to bend it backward, planning on snapping the thing in half. As the plastic was stretched to its limits, Jade finally came to her senses and stopped, before staring at the vibrating monstrosity that was once one of her favorite things. She couldn’t even bring herself to snap the reason for her torment in half, it would raise too many questions, even if she told Nacho she had simply lost her phone.

Slowly, she flipped her phone closed and set it next to her on the bench before trying to wipe the tears from her eyes and cheeks. She had been dealing with Dylan’s incessant calls and texts already, Jade figured. This changed nothing.

~-----~

To: <3Corey  
Text: 1/1  
you home

Jade was already at the apartment complex but hadn’t bothered to text Corey until she had arrived. She was sitting at one of the tables by the pool closest to his building and had his bag of stuff in front of her.

She stared at the screen waiting for him to respond, and her blue eyes landed on the text heart next to his name. Jade ran her thumb across the screen before deciding to take advantage of her time while Dylan wasn’t harassing her. She opened up her contacts, scrolling to Corey’s and then editing his name. With two button presses, Jade erased the small heart, leaving Corey’s name alone in the field. She hesitated another moment before saving his contact and flipping her phone closed.

Perhaps they could have worked things out eventually, or maybe they had already been together too long, but with Dylan constantly calling her and texting her there was no way around this. Jade sighed, knowing the faster this happened the faster she could get over it. Dumping Corey would be one less thing she had to worry about, at least.

Jade scoffed at herself. As if Corey was the actual problem.

It took Corey a bit to respond, and Jade was worried that Dylan would start another one of his endless calls or keep texting her, rendering her phone useless. She was lucky he had been quiet for most of the evening.

When her phone finally went off, she hesitated a moment before reading the front screen, “1 New Message From: Corey”.

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
yeah why

It was odd seeing his name without that little heart. Even before they started dating about ten months ago his name wasn’t just “Corey” on her phone. Before she answered she wondered if she should change it back to what it had originally been, Spencerrr, but decided against it.

To: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
come down to the pool 

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
youre here

To: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
yes  
Text: 2/2  
come down please

Jade took a deep breath in, figuring she just had to be quick about this. She just had to tell him they were over, walk five minutes to the bus stop and be home in half an hour. She ran through the small list over and over, but had a sinking feeling in her chest, knowing that it wouldn’t be that easy. With her nerves, Jade noticed her knee bouncing under the table and had to put forth a conscious effort to stop it.

“Hey babe,” she heard Corey say and she quickly looked up from the tabletop to see him standing before her, shirtless and barefoot of all things. She must have been so wrapped up in her nerves that she didn’t hear him walking over on the gravel.

“Uh, hey,” Jade sat a little straighter.

“What’s up?” he asked after she didn’t say anything more to him. Jade was still silent, trying to think of the best way possible to phrase what she needed to say, before realizing that her knee was nervously bouncing again. It's not like she hadn’t done this before, she had broken up with a lot of guys in a lot of different ways, but none of them were so tightly knit into her friends like Corey was. For fuck's sake, she had known him since junior high.

“Jade?” Corey regained her wandering attention span again, and before she could stop it, a rush of poorly thought out words left her mouth like vomit.

“I don’t want to date you anymore!” Well shit, Jade swallowed as she saw the blatant confusion on Corey’s face.

“What—?” he began but Jade quickly stood from her seat at the table, intending to walk away. She could only make things worse now, she had to leave. “Hey, wait!” Corey called after her. Jade realized she should have figured it wouldn’t be as easy as walking away from him. Corey was able to grab ahold of her arm and he used her momentum against her, jerking her to a stop.

“Let go of me—”

“Jade, what the hell—?”

“I’m serious, let go!” she turned around, not meaning to shout at him. Goddamnit she had really fucked this up.

“Why?” Corey asked her. Instead of releasing her he only held onto her other arm with his other hand. “What happened? What did I do?”

“Let go,” Jade insisted, able to bring her voice back down to an acceptable level, but now it was Corey who was freaking out.

“What did I do?” he asked again and Jade shook her head.

“You didn’t do anything, Corey,” she had to push him back so that he’d let go of her arms, “It's just over. We’re over.”

“Then what happened?” Corey asked, half spreading his arms.

“Nothing happened! We’re just over, alright?”

“No, it’s not alright! This isn’t alright!” Corey shook his head, “What is even happening right now?”

“I broke up with you, and now I’m going home,” Jade explained before trying to turn around and walk away again. This time, instead of grabbing for her arm again, Corey moved in front of her, trying to block her path.

“Tell me why. I don’t understand. What happened?” Corey asked and Jade was forced to stop again before she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at him.

“This has been happening, it's so past overdue! Are you kidding me?” Jade tried, figuring they probably should have broken up several months ago towards the beginning of the year.

“Is it Jesse?” Corey took a shot in the dark and Jade didn’t even respond to him. Instead, she stepped off the sidewalk and pushed him away when he tried blocking her again. “All a sudden Pinkman is back in the picture and a week later you dump me?” Corey continued, and Jade stopped again, this time out of her own anger.

“I don’t have a thing for Jesse Pinkman!” she shouted back at him.

“You dated him twice—”

“What? Once!” Jade asked, half cutting Corey off.

“—and you went to senior prom with him,” he continued.

“I did not, we all went to prom together as friends!”

“All the pictures are of you two together! And you’ve always had a thing for him!” Corey accused her.

“Tammy has always had a thing for him, you asshole, not me!”

“Then fucking Nacho then, is it him?”

Jade couldn’t stop herself from laughing condescendingly, “Are you kidding? I’m dumping you for some gangbanger a decade older than me? You’re fucking funny, really,” she added with sarcasm.

“Why is he so goddamn nice to you then?”

“He’s not nice to me!”

“I thought you were playing dumb about it but apparently you really are that stupid!” Corey shouted back at her.

“Fuck you, I’m so over you being a jealous baby!” Jade started walking away again

“Look at how my girlfriend acts around every other guy she meets!”

“Ex!” Jade looked back at him but didn’t stop.

When she thought their fight might be over, she heard Cory calling out to her. “Jade, wait!”

“Stop following me, you aren’t wearing shoes,” she called back without so much as a glance, before walking through the complex’s gate and through the parking lot towards the street.

“Jade, just wait, hold on okay? I’m sorry,” Corey kept following her regardless and tried stepping in front of her again but she dodged him. “Baby, I’m sorry.”

“Stop calling me that,” Jade grumbled back, her arms once again tightly crossed and she looked down the street, finding relief when she saw the bus already driving towards the stop she was walking to. 

“Just wait! Jade, can we start over and talk about this?” Corey plead as she walked to the bus stop sign and remained standing on the curb next to it, trying to ignore Corey.

“Corey, go home,” she told him without looking at him. She kept her eyes on the bus, silently willing it to hurry up.

“Talk to me, Jade I’m sorry. Look at me at least?” he asked her and Jade shook her head.

“Go home. You left your shit in that bag on the table by the pools.”

“Wait, Jade,” Corey kept trying, even as the bus finally pulled to a stop in front of them. Jade could barely wait for the doors to hiss open for her, finding a swift out for her breakup with Corey. He couldn’t follow her onto the bus, as Jade expected. He didn’t have any change on him, he didn’t even bother to put on a shirt or shoes when she asked him to come down to the pool.

“Jade!” he called after her as the driver closed the doors on him, seeing that he didn’t have a way to pay for a ride when Jade quickly scanned her bus pass. She made her way to the back of the bus with her head hung low and her eyes downcast to keep from looking at Corey out the windows, who Jade could still hear pleading with her.

The bus was already moving by the time she reached the back of the bus and she sat alone in the corner, drawing her knees to her chest and staring out the window at the passing cars until the bus finally stopped at the closest stop near her neighborhood. 

She had resisted checking on her phone at all until she got home, and even then, it was something she forced herself into. Unsurprisingly she had unread texts and missed calls from Dylan, (who’s contact she had already labeled AvoidDylan). Scattered among his most recent spurt of calls and texts, Jade also noticed that she had several texts and even a couple calls from her friends, mostly Corey.

From: Corey  
Text: 1/3  
jade please come back  
Text:2/3  
can we talk about this  
Text: 3/3  
ill do whatever baby please

From: Joelbear  
Text:1/1  
wtf is going on?

From: Lenabean  
Text:1/1  
hey babe? sup with u & corey?

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
jade please

From: Tayluh  
Text: 1/2  
dude the fuck happened  
Text: 2/2  
you seriously break up

From: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
at least talk to me cmon  
Text: 2/2  
baby

From: Pinkman  
Text: 1/1  
yo

From: TimTam  
Text: 1/2  
hey what happened to you and Corey?  
Text: 2/2  
answer your phone please

From: Tayluh  
Text: 1/1  
seriously coreys freaking out answer your phone

She couldn’t get through reading all the texts before her screen went white with the message “Incoming call: AvoidDylan”. Quickly, Jade snapped her phone shut before getting off her bed and tossing it into the top drawer of her dresser. Already her heart was pounding in her chest, and Jade stared at her closed drawer for a few long minutes, trying to get up enough courage to open it back up and pull her phone back out to respond to her friends. Instead, realizing that courage wouldn’t come, she backed up and got into her bed, pulling the covers over herself so she could just hide from the world.

~-----~

From: Pinkman  
Text: 1/1  
yo you sellin today

When Jade was sat at her bench was the only time she had her phone’s volume on. Even then, every text she got Jade was afraid to look at. Most of the time, with Domingo’s texts, Jade would just respond with a quick “ok”, either so she wouldn’t have to look at her unread texts from Dylan or so one of his incessant calls wouldn’t interrupt her response. Besides the texts from Domingo, Dylan, and the occasional texts from Nacho or Carlos, Jade hadn’t much heard from anyone else. Since she had broken up with Corey she hadn’t really talked to any of her friends.

Before Jade could think of a response to Jesse, since she would more than likely see him later in the day and couldn’t just avoid him like everyone else, she got another text, this time from Domingo.

From: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
Next guy, black beanie, 2 8b

To: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
could just say jesse pinkman is heading over 

From: Krazy8  
Text: 1/2  
Jesse Pinkman is heading over  
Text: 2/2  
Brat. Don’t give him free shit. 

To: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
its not free if i pay for it

Jade realized she was smiling down at her phone. Sadly, that had been one of her longest conversations all day. Her smile faded with that thought, and in an effort to ignore it, she navigated back to Jesse’s texts so she could respond to him.

To: Pinkman  
Text: 1/1  
yes come save me

“Come save you?”

She nearly jumped from Jesse’s verbal response not even a minute later. “Really?” she turned in her seat to face him, slowly feeling her heart fall back into her chest from her throat. “Yeah, come save me. What are you doing right now?” she asked.

“Uh,” Jesse stopped at her bench, remaining to stand as he shrugged. “Nothin’ besides this.”

“Can you go buy me more batteries? My CD player died like an hour ago,” Jade held up her useless CD player.

“Really?” he asked after a moment, crossing his arms over his baggy shirt. Jade immediately realized he wasn’t happy to see her like she would have thought.

“What? You brought cash this time right?” Jade set her CD player back down on the bench next to her.

“Yeah. But you just ghost all of us for a week and the first thing you say to me is ‘go buy me batteries’?” Jesse asked and Jade sighed.

“Hi Jesse, it’s so good to see you,” she told him sarcastically, leaning back against the bench.

“What happened to you?” he asked her and didn’t need to clarify, Jade already knew he wanted to know why she suddenly broke up with Corey before disappearing.

“I’m just… busy? I don’t know I just…” Jade couldn’t explain what had happened, she hadn’t told anyone about Dylan. Despite Jesse technically being her ex, he was still Corey’s friend.

“Okay, whatever,” Jesse gave up and sat next to Jade on the bench. “What about what happened between you and Corey?”

Jade shrugged, looking away from Jesse and looked up and down the empty street. “He and I shouldn’t have dated in the first place, we were friends. Dating kind of ruined that,” Jade admitted before finally looking back to Jesse on the bench next to her.

“Well yeah, if you’re gonna dump him and then disappear. I’d say that pretty much ruins everything.”

“Did you literally come here just to be a dick?” Jade asked him, “Corey and Joel have the same shit I do.”

“I’ve seen you break up with a lot of dudes, I’ve been through it with you. But you’ve never done this before,” Jesse ignored her.

“Can we please not talk about this?” Jade asked, trying a different approach.

“Will you tell me what happened at least? Because Corey was pretty convinced there was another guy—”

“Seriously?” Jade stopped him, though he was pretty spot on. She wasn’t seeing another guy, sure, but there definitely was another guy. “I didn’t leave him to be with someone else, okay?” Jade explained, keeping to the truth surprisingly. “I’m just going through some shit.”

Jesse took a second before responding but looked like he believed her. “Okay. Guess you’re kinda known for dumping guys out of the blue anyway.”

“Really?” Jade rose an eyebrow at him, only to see Jesse smile back at her teasingly. “You weren’t random.”

“After a good month it was random, c’mon,” he leaned back in his seat also, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“A month? Really?” Jade almost laughed at him. “Jesse, we dated for, like, a week. Tops.”

“It was a month,” he pushed but Jade shook her head.

“No, it was four years ago and you don’t remember. It was a week,” Jade corrected him but Jesse didn’t look like she could convince him.

“I do remember, it was the beginning of my sophomore year before November and we went until about Christmas break. It was over a month, actually.”

“Not even,” Jade turned in her seat to face Jesse now. “We dated the week before December, including Thanksgiving break, and that’s it. It was one week.”

“You can tell yourself whatever you want, we dated for a month…” he shook his head but didn’t get a response from Jade. Her phone had started ringing halfway through his sentence and Jade’s stomach dropped, confirming her fear by looking at the front screen of her phone. It read “Incoming Call From: AvoidDylan”.

“You gonna get that?” Jesse asked and Jade quickly looked away from her screen.

“Huh? No,” she answered, waiting for her phone to stop ringing before flipping it open to try and silence it. Before she could, Dylan was already calling her a second time.

“Hey… You okay?” Jesse asked and Jade only nodded, staring at the screen of her phone so she could try and silence the phone again before his next call. “Who is that?” he asked after the second call stopped ringing.

“No one,” Jade answered, able to successfully silence her phone this time.

“That the same weirdo from before?” Jesse asked her and Jade quickly shook her head, looking back up to him.

“What? No, there’s no weirdo,” she lied unconvincingly.

“Okay,” Jesse sighed, but looked like he knew something was up. In an attempt to draw his mind away from the subject, and with her phone silently ringing on her lap with Dylan’s third call, she pulled three baggies out of her right pocket.

“Is the third one for your batteries?” Jesse asked her, actually making a move to pull his wallet out this time.

“Forget the batteries. Are you doing anything right now?”

“Jade, my whole life right now is me not doing anything,” Jesse laughed and she forced a smile.

“Can you chill for a bit then?” she asked him hopefully.

“You don’t have to bribe me with crystal to hang out,” he told her, but still took the three eights before handing her the cash he owed for two.

“Don’t smoke that all at once, okay?” she told him folding the twenties he handed her before shoving them in her back pocket with the rest of the cash she had made since Carlos had last swung by to give her more product and pick up the money.

“I’m not an addict,” Jesse rolled his eyes but kept his smile, “C’mon. You know me better than that.”

“Thought I did. Then again I thought you’d never smoke crystal too, so…” Jade teased him, trying to push away her anxiety over Dylan calling her.

“You’re the most judgmental dealer I’ve bought from. Just sayin’,” Jesse succeeded in actually making Jade laugh.

“‘Cause other dealers didn’t date you for a week,” Jade pushed back, trying to smile cheekily.

“Whatever. That was the longest ‘week’ in human history,” Jesse crossed his arms, leaning back against the bench they were on. “Anyways,” he started while Jade stared at the screen of her phone, showing that Dylan had resorted to texting her now instead of calling. “Uh…” he waited a moment and Jade tore her eyes away from her phone in her lap so she could look at him and let him continue whatever he was going to say. “My party’s this weekend.”

“I’m still invited to that?” Jade rose her eyebrow at him in question.

“You’re invited to all my parties for forever,” Jesse laughed at her and Jade tried smiling at him. “But, um… yeah. It’s coming up. Monday night.”

Jade shifted in her seat, unsure what his angle was. She knew his party was on Monday. She also knew that it’d be a horrible idea for her to go, she had practically avoiding everyone she knew since dumping Corey, half because she could hardly use her phone, and half because she was almost certain she’d get shit from her friends for not responding to them for so long after the breakup.

“I wanted to ask a favor though?” Jesse started again in Jade’s silence, finally losing his smile. Jade almost immediately knew what he was going to ask as he continued. “I already checked with Corey and Joel but they don’t think they can help. You’re the only other dealer who's cool with me.”

“You want me to get you drugs for the party?” Jade deadpanned.

“No, Jesus. No, not drugs. Uh, weed,” he clarified, looking a little sheepish as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

“I don’t deal pot, Jesse. If you’re inviting a bunch of tweakers to the party I can help with crystal but I don’t even know how to get a hold of any pot,” Jade shook her head, looking back to her phone with a sigh. She’d never bought weed from anyone before, the only way she’d had any was through Lena and Taylor or Joel stealing it from his dad. “Did you ask Taylor?” she questioned Jesse since he had been silent this time.

“Uh, yeah,” he responded as if that was obvious. “He can’t get enough, maybe a dimebag but that's it.”

Jade looked back over to Jesse, her eyebrow raised again but this time in skepticism.

“Look, I’ve asked everyone I know who could help. Unless it’s gonna be bring your own which is shit because I don’t even have any right now.”

“But you’ve got something else,” Jade pointed out and Jesse sighed.

“Look, Joel said you were cool with Krazy—”

“Joel said?” Jade asked him. “Joel’s cool with Krazy too. We both work for him. Corey does too.

“No, like you were buddies or some shit. Like actually cool with him,” Jesse pressed.

“Krazy can’t get me weed,” Jade refused. She knew that everything Krazy got came from Nacho, and in order for him to get pot to sell to her for Jesse’s party, he would have to go through Nacho, meaning Jade would have to go through Nacho. She actually didn’t doubt that he could hook her up, but she was also positive that he would turn her down before she could finish asking him to.

“Please ask, at least?” Jesse pled and Jade leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. “I’ll pay you back, I promise.”.

“Fine,” she caved. “I’ll ask. And then I’ll get chewed out and then I’m gonna chew you out,” she looked back to Jesse, who had regained his smile. “Deal?”

“You’re amazing, you know that?”

“I didn’t say I’d get it, I just said I’d ask,” Jade sat back before leaning in towards Jesse, her shoulder meeting his.

“I know, but this is the best I’ve gotten out of anyone so far,” he laughed, “I feel like Princess Leia.”

“Fucking what?” Jade laughed also. “Why?”

“You’re my only hope,” he explained and Jade shook her head.

“Shut up,” Jade shook her head and glanced back down to her phone. Thankfully, it had been dark for the past several minutes.

“So, when do you think you’ll know if you can get it or not?” Jesse asked her, but halfway through, a vehicle turning down her lonely street caught her attention.

“Jesse, you need to leave,” she said quickly, watching Nacho’s van pull to a stop, parking across the street from her. There was a glare from the street light he was under so she couldn’t see Nacho through the driver side window but had a gut feeling he’d be angry that Jesse was hanging out with her.

“What?” he asked her, looking towards Nacho’s van after. “Who’s that?” he asked Jade, making no move to get up from his spot next to her on the bench. “Your weirdo?”

“No, that’s my boss,” Jade looked away from Nacho’s van to Jesse’s concerned face. “You need to ghost, now,” she urged him.

“You’ll be okay?” he asked her, obviously noting how panicked she suddenly sounded. Across the street from them, Jade heard the door to Nacho’s van open and slam shut before she could respond. He was already walking over to Jade’s bench, a Circle K coffee cup in his hands but that was the last thing Jade noticed. Nacho, as she had expected, looked pissed. He kept his hard glare on Jesse as he made is way over and Jade looked back to Jesse herself.

“We’re on good terms, but you need to leave. Now,” Jade pressed and Jesse, also watching Nacho stalk towards them, finally stood up from the bench.

“So, you’ll ask Krazy still—?”

“Jesse,” Jade stressed and he took the hint.

He looked to Nacho once more before backing away from the bench, saying, “Text me ‘bout it, yeah?”

“Okay,” Jade watched him back to the corner of the cross street before finally turning around and speed walking away. Jade watched him disappear behind the corner of the brick building behind her before turning to face Nacho with a sheepish grin.

“Hey,” she greeted him and was met with the same hard look he was giving Jesse, though it quickly began to fade. “Did you bring me coffee?” she asked, trying to ignore how annoyed he looked.

He looked like he was going to answer her, opening his mouth before sighing and closing it. He looked around them, his jaw flexing and Jade patiently waited to see if he was going to let the issue drop or if he was going to berate her.

“I didn’t know what to get you because you weren’t answering your phone,” he stated and Jade had to blink to keep her eyes from widening. She realized she had been completely ignoring her phone since Jesse had shown up.

“Oh, um,” Jade accepted the coffee when Nacho handed it to her, “I had my phone on silent,” she picked it up and flipped it open, trying not to let her stomach sink when she saw she had eight missed calls and over twenty text messages. “Sorry Nacho,” she snapped it shut quickly and placed it front screen down again on the bench next to her.

“You don’t need it on when Domingo texts you?” he questioned, sounding unassuming as he crossed his arms loosely over his chest. Jade realized he knew something was up, he was only acting the same as she was.

“I’m usually good at keeping tabs on it,” she lied as Nacho handed over her coffee. “Sorry I didn’t see your texts,” she added, realizing the coffee was still too hot to try and drink, so she couldn’t use it as an out for their conversation.

“I called you.” He stated and Jade felt herself shrink on the bench. “Three times.”

“Oh,” Jade couldn’t keep eye contact with him and instead looked down at her lap. She could have sworn her phone was dark for the past few minutes. Again, Nacho sighed before moving to sit next to her on the bench where Jesse had been, only with few inches of space between them.

“Are you doing okay?” Nacho asked her, his tone hinting at concern.

“I’m great,” she forced a smile, glancing over at him quickly, “Thanks.”

“Jade,” he called for her attention, dropping his act as that concerned tone took over completely.

“Hm?” she asked, forcing herself to keep her eyes on him this time.

“You’re okay?” he asked again and she nodded.

“Yeah. I told you, I’m great.” The more she said it the easier it got for her to lie, she had to lie to her parents, her siblings, straight to Jesse’s face, and now to Nacho.

“Is Dylan still bothering you?” Nacho asked and Jade struggled to keep her smile.

“Who?” she asked but she could tell Nacho didn’t believe her.

“Your stalker,” he unnecessarily clarified. The word “stalker” itself made Jade’s smile strop and she had to look away from Nacho again, staring at the coffee cup she was holding next to her cell phone in her lap.

“Nope, haven’t heard from him again,” she lied straight through her teeth, managing to keep up her nonchalant tone.

“So if I check your phone right now, I won’t see any calls or text from him?” he asked, actually picking up her cell phone from where it was resting on her thigh closest to him, causing an immediate panic. Jade kept her composure, despite feeling like he could throw up or pass out any second, and shook her head, “Nope. You won’t see anything like that.” She even managed to smile again, though this time it wasn’t as wide or falsely happy.

The seconds passed agonizingly slow as he stared down her poker face, and finally, after what felt like a century, he handed her phone over to her, not even bothering to check like he had suggested he would. Immediate relief flooded her as she reached for her phone before she realized her hand was shaking. To try and hide that, she quickly took the phone from him and set it on the bench on her other side before placing both of her hands on the coffee cup she was holding in her lap.

“So, what was up with Pinkman?” he asked after a few seconds of silence.

“Huh?” Jade looked back over, “Oh, I was… bored,” she lied again. Nacho, instead of just taking the lie this time, rose his scarred eyebrow at her. She grabbed for her CD player, raising it up to show him and hoped her hands weren’t still shaking uncontrollably. She glanced to check and realized they were. “Batteries died,” she said, quickly dropping the hand holding her CD player so she could place back on the bench opposite Nacho and next to her phone.

“You give him more free crystal then?”

Jade sighed, forcing herself to roll her eyes like everything was normal with her. “No, it’s not free, I’m paying for it. And I just gave him one eight, he paid for the other two.”

“That kid is paying for two eights on his own?” Nacho smiled, almost laughing at what she said. He probably thought she was lying still like she had been lying this whole time to him.

Jade didn’t immediately respond. Instead, she let her fake smile fall from her face. “Really?”

Nacho shook his head, still looking amused, before saying, “Domingo is going to cut him off if he keeps pulling that crap.”

“He’s not pulling anything. I gave him one to hang out with me for a bit,” Jade defended Jesse.

“You had to feed his habit to get him to hang out with you?”

“No, it’s not—I just… Nacho, it’s not a big deal. I’m paying for it, you and Domingo still get the same amount of cash and everything’s fine. Okay?”

“Don’t do it again,” the smile slowly started fading from his face. “Seriously this time.”

“Fine, whatever,” Jade sighed before finally bringing her coffee cup up to her lips. She nearly choked from the bitter taste and she fought with her reflex to not spit it out all over herself immediately. “What the hell is this?” she choked, holding her cup up as she looked to Nacho, who was suddenly amused again.

“That’s coffee,” he stated with a wide grin. “You’ll probably want these,” he added, pulling a few packets of sugar out of one of his jacket pockets and a couple of creamers out of the other jacket pocket.

“This is the blackest coffee I’ve ever tasted, holy fuck,” she took the sugars and creamer from him before precariously balancing the cup of coffee between her thighs. “This is like Satan level black coffee,” she added, popping the lid off and finding nearly pure black, steaming liquid inside.

“You absolute child. Really?” Nacho laughed at her and Jade couldn’t help but laugh as well. Between him and Jesse making her laugh it was the first time she had done so in over a week, and it felt oddly liberating. “That’s the light brew, by the way. It’s practically hot water.”

“I’m a child?” Jade asked him, focusing more on pouring the creamer and sugar packets into the coffee cup so she wouldn’t spill anything on her lap. “Because I don’t like black coffee that makes me a child?”

“That’s definitely not the only reason,” Nacho told her, leaning back on the bench with his arms crossed loosely over his chest again.

“You know,” Jade started, setting the trash from her sugar and creamer packets next to her cell phone and CD player, “I thought we were cool, but apparently you’re just a huge jerk.”

“So let me get this straight. I did something nice for you and you call me a jerk?” Nacho asked.

“Exactly,” Jade answered, swirling the coffee around in the cup before tasting it again, finding it much less bitter than the first time.

“Cool. So I was coming to pick you up but I guess you’re fine here for the rest of the night?” Nacho asked her, standing up from the bench.

“You’re coming to pick me up early?” Jade asked, knowing he was only teasing her with his statement. She hadn’t checked the time but it was probably only seven o’clock at best.

“Yeah, Domingo says it’s slow and wants to go home. You’re done for the night,” Nacho told her before quickly and sarcastically adding “If that’s alright with you.”

“Jeez,” Jade laughed, “fine. But are you gonna need me tomorrow? ‘Cause you just bought me a giant coffee and I poured like five sugars into it so I’m not gonna be able to sleep until like noon tomorrow,” Jade explained, shoving her phone in her back pocket as she stood up. She shoved her trash in her other back pocket and carried the dead CD player and her coffee in her hands, following Nacho to the passenger door of his van.

“Yeah, that’s fine. You don’t have to do this tomorrow,” Nacho opened the door for her and Jade awkwardly climbed in with her hands full.

“Whatever I said about you being a jerk I take back,” Jade told him and earned a quick smile before Nacho closed the door behind her.

In any other circumstances, that may have been a good thing. But as of now, with Dylan constantly harassing her, dealing for Domingo and Nacho was the closest thing to escaping she could get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really tried to get this out before the new year but between the holidays and my heartbreak over Star Wars, it just didn't happen. So, Happy new year, I guess? 😊 Anyways, I should have the next chapter up in a couple of weeks and I'll try to stick to the two updates a month as I planned in the last chapter.
> 
> Another thing, since we have Dylan well introduced now, the thing I changed in chapter five was Jade handing both her drink and her phone over to him in the hallway while she was trying to deal with the addict. I had planned on him getting Jade's number in another way but I eventually scrapped that idea and all of a sudden it didn't make sense for him to randomly have Jade's number. It's not perfect, I know :(
> 
> Anyways, thanks to my boyfriend for helping beta this (and keeping Dylan's name consistent since I've changed his name a couple of times already), and thank you for reading!


	9. Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nacho learns of Jade’s breakup and what caused it; it makes him feel responsible. Jade’s friends force her to explain her sudden distance. Jade asks Nacho for a favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Sleigh Bells' song "Crush".
> 
> This chapter is about 16.5 novel pages long (we're well over 100 novel pages now!) and Grammarly estimates it will take about 29 minutes to read.
> 
> The spoiler warning for season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other real warnings for this chapter other than I'm posting it at 3 am so, maybe formatting issues will be present? Who knows.
> 
> No Spanish in this chapter :)

“If you turned your ringer on, you wouldn’t have to check your phone every five minutes,” Nacho told her, sounding nonchalant from the driver seat of his van. Jade had already missed his call earlier in the day when he was trying to ask if she needed a ride to Tampico that day. Luckily, he had assumed she did since he had been giving her rides since she started dealing. He hadn’t mentioned anything to her when she had called him, panicked, five minutes before he was going to pick her up, but the fact that he had now meant that Nacho knew something was up. Jade figured he’d known since a couple days ago when he’d ran Jesse off from her bench.

Jade snapped her phone shut, and thought about shoving it into her pocket to stop from flipping it back open and checking her texts and calls. Thankfully, Dylan had been silent for about the last half hour, but so were all of her other friends. It figures that when she was trying to ignore them all they wouldn’t stop bombarding her, and when she wanted someone to talk to her, nobody but her creep stalker would call or text.

In the absence of a response from Jade, Nacho tried prying at her in a different way. “You know, if that bench is starting to bore you, I can let you deal with Corey today?” Jade shut her eyes quickly, hearing Corey’s name. “Domingo’s been heavy for the past two weeks with your help.”

“We broke up,” Jade said quickly, realizing that Nacho probably had no idea about what she did a week ago. He and Corey didn’t speak unless it was absolutely necessary for them, and Corey wouldn’t have a reason to tell Nacho.

“You— what?” Nacho’s tone changed about as fast as she had blurted those words out. “You and Corey broke up?”

“Yeah,” Jade kept her voice indifferent, but she was afraid to look over at him.

“Why?” Nacho asked her, giving her quick glances from the road. Jade shrugged but wasn’t sure if he had seen, so she answered him verbally.

“You’re confused after you told me to dump him a few weeks back?” she asked.

“You actually listened to me?” Nacho looked surprised for a split second before he shook his head. “No. What happened?” he asked, not believing she had dumped Corey out of the blue.

“Nothing,” Jade lied unconvincingly, realizing that her answer held no weight. People didn’t break up for no reason. Even if he didn’t date, Jade realized that Nacho would figure that much.

“Nothing?” Nacho questioned her, sounding completely unconvinced. “There was no reason whatsoever?”

“It’s just… You wouldn’t…” Jade sighed. She couldn’t tell him it was because of Dylan, but she wasn’t coming up with a valid reason fast enough. She still hadn’t given a real reason to Corey. “Do you seriously care or are you just asking to be nice?” she decided to try and derail the conversation, keeping her eyes in her lap.

“Are you trying to tell me not to ask?” From the corner of her eye, she could see Nacho glance over from the road and Jade tried to stop herself from sighing. She didn’t respond immediately, so Nacho asked her a different question. “Or did he flip out over that creep who’s been calling you?”

Jade tried to remain composed and act like she had no idea what Nacho was even talking about, but, as if on cue, David had text her the very second after Nacho had asked. Though her phone was on silent, the front screen still lit up. Since they were at a red light and Nacho’s eyes were glued onto her, Jade figured there was no way he hadn’t seen that, even if he couldn’t read the screen. In reflex, Jade turned her phone upside down on her lap but it was already too late.

“I—um… He’s… It’s fine,” she stumbled through a crappy response, keeping her eyes locked on the back of her phone now.

“Let me see,” he reached out, asking for her phone.

“Nacho, it’s fine, seriously,” she told him, trying to steady her voice but she only succeeded in raising it, making her sound scared. In all honesty, she was. Jade wasn’t sure how Nacho would react if he saw the dozens of calls and texts from David just from that day alone.

Instead of asking her a second time, he quickly drove his van off the road and into the first parking lot they passed, pulling into an empty space. “Nacho, really—”

“Let me see your phone,” Nacho cut her off, holding his hand out for the cell phone, but Jade was too afraid of what reaction he might have if she did.

“Nacho, honestly—” she couldn’t finish before he turned his van off and he got out of the driver’s side, walking around the front to Jade’s passenger door. “Really, it’s okay…” she tried as he opened the door, again holding his hand out for her phone.

“Phone, now.” This time he wasn’t asking her, and Jade didn’t have an option but to hand her phone over to him.

“I told him like you said, I told him to get lost and I meant it and I got really mad with him… Nacho?” Jade asked after he had flipped the phone open and was undoubtedly seeing all the missed calls and text messages from David.

“You and Corey broke up because of this?” Nacho looked up from her phone. “Did he see this?”

“He didn’t see it. He doesn’t know about it,” Jade answered only one of his questions.

“So you broke up with him?” Nacho clarified and, biting down on her bottom lip, Jade nodded.

“Yes, I broke up with him,” Jade tried not to sound angry, but she couldn’t quite keep her emotions in check. She had to clench her hands into fists on her lap to keep them from shaking.

“Why?” Nacho asked her. “Because of this?”

“Why do you think?” Jade asked him back, “He was jealous enough over you—”

“Over me?” Nacho’s eyebrows shot up, briefly interrupting Jade.

“Yeah, over you. And then throw Dylan into it and Corey would lose his goddamn mind if he found out.”

“He’d better lose his mind over this pendejo. That’s a normal reaction to someone stalking your girlfriend, Jade,” Nacho tried to argue but he missed the point. Corey would have flipped out because it was another guy talking to her, not only because Dylan was harassing her. He’d flip due to the whole situation leading up to the unwanted texts and calls.

“He would have flipped out because David’s talking to me, then he would have flipped out because I was at a party, then he would have flipped out because I spent the night at your place. He already thought something was up because I had to lie through my teeth to Tuco the next day,” Jade explained, crossing her arms over her chest defensively.

“That’s not how this works. What this guy is doing to you should overshadow all of that—”

“You obviously don’t know Corey then,” Jade cut Nacho off this time.

“I can’t picture Corey being that big of an idiot, not if he’s your boyfriend and your friend.”

“It…” Jade sighed, breaking eye contact with Nacho to look everywhere else she could but directly at him. “It was past due anyway, you were right.”

“What reason did you give him then?” he asked and Jade settled in her lap once again.

“I didn’t,” she admitted.

“You didn’t tell him why you broke up with him?” Nacho clarified and Jade sighed, finding a truly judgmental tone in his voice.

“Can we just drop this, please?” she asked.

“What are you going to do about this guy calling you? Ignore it and hope he just goes away?” Nacho asked her after a second’s hesitation and she glanced back to him, only to realize his eyes were on her phone, which was still flipped open in his right hand.

“Don’t,” she told him quickly, watching his thumb move to the green phone button. Dylan must have been calling her again. “Don’t Nacho, don’t answer it,” she plead, unbuckling her seatbelt and turning in her seat so that she was facing the open door and Nacho himself.

He looked up to her from her cell phone, his jaw tense and eyebrows furrowed. Jade easily recognized he was pissed. “This is the third time he’s called you while I’ve been standing here,” Nacho told her and Jade’s stomach did a nauseating flip.

“Please, I—I’ll take care of it, just don’t answer it, please,” she begged, holding her hand out for her phone. It looked like Nacho would oblige, and Jade figured Dylan had gotten her voicemail again, but then he ran his left hand down his face and Jade realized, though her phone was still on silent, that David was already calling a fourth time. She should have figured that it was uncharacteristic of him to stop at just three calls.

“Nacho?” Jade tried to call his attention away from her phone but her voice was weak and Nacho looked beyond angry. Nacho looked furious, more than Jade had ever seen from him before. In another second she was shocked to hear the snap of plastic as he twisted her phone in his hands, bending the two halves of her phone backward until it broke in two. Jade blinked, a tear streaking down her cheek while she stared in shock at her broken phone. Her initial reaction was to get angry with him again, Nacho had just broken her cell phone after all, but immediately she felt a sense of… relief. Silently, she just watched as Nacho turned around and tossed the two halves of her phone into the nearly empty parking lot they had pulled into, both pieces skidding away from each other.

“I told you to tell me if he kept calling you,” Nacho finally turned around, very obviously angry but he still wasn’t quite yelling at Jade.

“What would you have done?” Jade tried asking, “You said you didn’t know who he was, what could you have done to help me?”

“Exactly what I’m doing right now—!”

“What, snap my phone in half?” Jade cut him off while wiping at her damp cheeks.

“You promised me,” he switched the subject back, pointing at her now that both his hands were free. “I told you to tell me and you promised me you would. Why didn’t you?”

“What difference would it have made?” Jade asked him, trying not to let him guilt trip her like he was.

“You’d still be with your boyfriend, that’s a big difference. You wouldn’t be avoiding your friends, you wouldn’t be a nervous wreck,” Nacho started explaining to her and Jade, unable to keep eye contact with him at this point, leaned forward towards the open doorway and rested her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

“This could have been fixed weeks ago,” Nacho continued before sighing to himself.

“I’m sorry,” Jade tried, chancing a glance up from her hands, only to see Nacho run a hand down his face before looking around them.

“Don’t apologize to me. This is my fault,” he told Jade before finally looking back to her.

“How is this your fault?” Jade asked him, her eyebrows pressing together in confusion. “You didn’t do shit.”

“I should have done this when I first found out,” he admitted and Jade shook her head.

“Snap my phone in half? That would have been overreacting. That was overreacting,” she told him and Nacho leaned against the open passenger door of his van. Both of them had already calmed down considerably.

“I shouldn’t have had you deal at that party. You shouldn’t have been there.”

“You didn’t know what would happen,” Jade told him and Nacho rose an eyebrow at her.

“It’s a college party. What do you think happens at college parties?” he asked her.

“I dunno,” she sighed with a shrug. “I’ve never been to one before, I’m not in school.”

“Figures,” was all he responded with, keeping his eyes on her as if he could see straight through to her thoughts.

“Besides Dylan, it sucked anyway,” Jade admitted and Nacho nodded, looking like he forced a smile on her behalf.

“Yeah, they usually do,” he agreed with her.

Jade bit her lip debating on what she wanted to say next, and decided on, “Thank you, though, Nacho.”

“Thanking me is worse than apologizing to me,” he told her flat out, immediately losing his smile.

“I meant for my phone,” she failed to explain, only getting a confused look from Nacho. “I couldn’t just break it like that, I was too attached to it.” 

“It’s just plastic,” Nacho started off, and Jade thought he was about to lecture her on material possessions (while wearing expensive boots, expensive clothes, an expensive watch, and expensive gold chains, not to mention the diamond-studded snake earing in his ear). “It snaps real easy, not much to it.”

“Shut up,” Jade couldn’t help but laugh at him, “You know what I meant.”

“I’ll get you another one,” he told her. Jade immediately wanted to tell him that it was fine and that he didn’t have to, even though he literally did just snap her phone in half. The relief of never having to deal with Dylan again was worth it. Maybe she should have just broken her phone in half days ago. Maybe she should have told Nacho after that first night.

He had already told her not to thank him, so instead, she slipped out of his van and onto her feet, so she was standing in front of him. She didn’t hesitate in standing on her toes or throwing her arms around his neck in a hug. Nacho didn’t seem to expect the gesture, he had even taken a step back when she got out of his van as if he was allowing her room to walk away. It took a brief second for him to actually respond to her, and when he did Jade felt him slowly deflate and relax. A heartbeat later she felt him reciprocating with his arms wrapping around her back, holding her in place against him.

“You okay?” Nacho asked her and she could feel his question in her hair against the side of her head.

She took a moment, breathing in the expensive cologne on his shirt, before responding to his question. “Yeah.”

~-----~

“You suck so bad at this game, are you even trying?” Charlie asked her without taking his eyes off the television screen.

“Mm,” Jade responded, sounding uninterested. In all honesty, she was. She didn’t want to be spending a Saturday night, one she didn’t have to spend dealing with thanks to Nacho, shut in her brother’s room playing a stupid video game. But, even though Nacho had bought her a brand new Dylan-free phone two days ago, Jade was still too afraid to try and talk to her friends. It had been too long already, and she was afraid they would be pissed at her for dropping off the face of the earth. So Jade figured, why not stay off the radar, she was already so deep in the hole she had dug for herself so she might as well keep digging.

“You’re fucking boring,” Charlie looked back at Jade when she lost and she only shrugged. “What's the matter with you? You’ve been in a shitty mood for a week now.” Was it only a week though? Or was that just when Charlie started taking notice?

“Sorry,” Jade shrugged again, leaning back on her little brother’s bed.

“Seriously, you’re starting to act like how mom gets when she’s between meds—”

“Don’t talk shit about mom,” Jade shot a glare in his direction and he quit talking. He held her gaze for a short while before popping the disc out of his PlayStation.

“Play me at Mortal Kombat, you like that game at least,” he said, swapping the discs. It was funny how he had a similar approach to avoiding problems like Jade, at least it would be if she could get herself to laugh. Instead, she only sighed, quickly selecting Raiden before the first match started, her brother choosing Sonya. She almost couldn’t bring herself to put enough into the match to kick Charlie’s ass but, at risk of him throwing her out of his room, she pulled through and won. Jade kept concentrated enough to win the second match, and then the third when Charlie swapped to Scorpion, but after that, she couldn’t bring herself to care.

After losing two matches, and Charlie threatening her that she’d better try or else, there was a knock on his bedroom door. “What?” he shouted without bothering to pause the game for them.  
Instead of an answer, his door opened and the last two people Jade expected stepped in. “Why?” Charlie whined, finally pausing the game when he glanced away from the screen. Jade had already lost her concentration, feeling her heart sink to her stomach when she saw Tammy and Lena enter.

“Hey guys,” she greeted them meekly, half afraid to move from her spot on Charlie’s bed.

“You three can’t all hang out in here,” Charlie looked back to Jade briefly.

“Thanks for the hospitality, pipsqueak,” Lena rolled her eyes, “We’d rather die than stay in your room, don’t worry.”

“Jade, c’mon, we need to talk,” Tammy reached out for her and slowly, Jade worked up the courage to set the PlayStation controller down and stand from Charlie’s bed.

“Sorry bro,” she said, running her fingers across his hair to mess it up, trying to act like everything was normal.

“Dick,” he hissed back at her, trying to fix it quickly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lena stick her tongue out at Charlie.

Tammy grabbed onto Jade’s hand once she was near enough, and led her out of Charlie’s room, with Lena closing the door behind them. “So, backyard?” Lena asked.

“Trampoline’s cool with me,” Tammy nodded and Jade stayed quiet, only hoping they weren’t going to yell at her. Then again, they didn’t look entirely pissed at her either.

Tammy led them out, still holding onto Jade’s hand, and the three of them walked over to the trampoline in the backyard.

“I’m sorry guys,” Jade blurted out, unsure of what exactly to tell them. She didn’t want to talk about Dylan, ever, so she couldn’t exactly explain what had been going on with her the past few weeks.

“What happened?” Lena asked when Tammy finally let go of Jade’s hand and sat on the edge of the trampoline.

“I don’t—” Jade started.

“You disappeared hardcore after what happened with Corey,” Tammy told her.

“Uh…”

“And what actually happened with Corey? You just dumped him out of the blue?” Lena asked before Jade could think of an answer. She pulled herself onto the trampoline as well, sitting next to Tammy, leaving Jade standing in front of them by herself.

“We weren’t working out,” Jade told them quietly.

“I guess you stayed with him close to a year, that’s a record for you,” Lena shrugged, looking to Tammy who gave her a look of disapproval. “What? That’s not a bad thing, she used to burn through guys in school like fire,” Lena looked back to Jade with a sly smile, but Jade couldn’t find it in herself to return it.

“What did he do?” Tammy asked when Jade gave no physical or verbal response.

“Nothing really. He just got… really clingy,” Jade sighed, crossing her arms.

“You can’t blame him, his girlfriend’s pretty hot,” Lena kept her smile. Honestly Jade was surprised they weren’t giving her more shit. It helped to slowly take her off edge.

“Ex-girlfriend,” Tammy corrected.

“Right, ex. So that’s it then?”

“What’s it?” Jade asked Lena, not understanding her question.

“You dumped Corey and thought we’d all hate you or something? Or were you purposely avoiding all of us?”

“Um, no… not really,” Jade tried answering before she could half come up with a plausible reason for not talking to any of her friends. “I’ve just been in a funk, you know?”

They probably didn’t. Tammy hadn’t seriously dated anyone before and Lena had been with Taylor close to five years now.

“God help me if I ever do know,” Lena answered, verifying Jade’s thoughts.

“Corey’s still pretty bummed but he’s still been talking to everyone,” Tammy shrugged.

“I dumped him though. Like, I fucked everything up, not him. You know?” Jade shrugged, looking around her backyard for an excuse to avoid eye contact with Tammy and Lena. “And then I lost my phone and it made everything a thousand times worse.”

“Wait,” Lena sat up straighter as Jade looked back to her. “You lost your cell phone?” Jade only nodded, finding it easier to lie that way. “When?”

“Like, two and a half weeks ago? Not long after I dumped Corey,” Jade answered, trying not to sound guilty.

“Shit girl,” Lena laughed, looking to Tammy. “And we all thought you hated us. Fuck.”

“You could have called us on your house phone at least?” Tammy asked, already poking holes in Jade’s lie.

“Yeah, I know. Like I said I’ve been feeling shitty too. It took you guys finally coming over for me to realize I was doing that to myself,” Jade explained, relieved that it made coherent sense.

“We should have done this that same weekend then. Fuck babe, I’m sorry,” Lena pouted and Tammy scooted off the trampoline so she could hug Jade.

“I’ll never hate you guys, I promise,” Jade said while Tammy held her for a moment.

“Damn straight, we’ll be best friends ‘til we’re ninety,” Lena smiled at Jade when Tammy let her go, and she waved her over to the trampoline.

“What happens after we’re ninety?” Tammy asked and Jade actually laughed at her.

“We all die next to each other in bed. Then the fucking world explodes, that’s what,” Lena answered.

“At least we die first, shit,” Jade smiled at her, crawling onto the trampoline so she could hug Lena as well, who pulled her down so they were laying on the trampoline. Tammy joined them, laying on the other side of Lena before she let Jade go and the two rolled onto their backs as well.

“I’m gonna call Taylor real quick and tell him you lost your phone, ‘kay babe?” Lena asked, pulling her cell phone out of her jean’s back pocket.

“Yeah, cool,” Jade sighed, looking up at the few stars visible this early in the night. The sun had probably only set ten minutes ago.

“Hey, she’s alive. We found her,” Lena said into her phone after a brief few seconds. “At her ‘rents. Poor thing was playing some video game with Charlie.”

Jade smiled to herself, figuring she probably looked miserable laying on Charlie’s bed playing Mortal Kombat.

“So she lost her damned phone, she wasn’t avoiding us really. I mean, she thought we’d all be pissed ‘cause she dumped Corey’s sorry ass—” Jade could barely hear Taylor defending Corey on Lena’s phone, but she wasn’t able to make out any words he said. “His ass is sorry. I know you’re best friends but you have to admit that.”

Jade swore she could hear a brief silence and then a “yeah, okay” from the other end of the call and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Did he just agree?” Tammy asked form Lena’s other side

“He did,” Lena laughed as well, pulling her phone away from her mouth for a second. “Huh? I’m not laughing at him. We’re not laughing—” Lena kept laughing despite denying it. “I’m sorry,” she came back a second time after pulling the phone away from her mouth again.

“He wants to talk to you,” Lena said after another moment when they had settled down.

“Taylor?” Jade asked though she felt it was unnecessary to clarify. She just didn’t want Corey to somehow be on the other end.

“Yeah, he says he misses you,” Lena handed her the cell phone.

“Hey Taylor,” Jade held the phone to her right ear but had to immediately pull it away.

“Jade, oh my god!” she heard Taylor nearly scream at her.

“Holy shit,” she laughed again, before resting the phone against her ear again.

“We all thought you died, like those unsolved crime TV episodes or something,” he laughed as well.

“Really?” Jade rose an eyebrow, though he couldn’t see. “So you all thought Corey killed me?”

“What?” it was Taylor’s turn to laugh.

“Its always the ex-boyfriends who kill those people on that show. Like, seriously,” Jade explained.

“Damnit, you’re right!” Taylor laughed again. “So, what have you been doing this whole time then? Since Corey didn’t murder you?”

“Um, literally fucking nothing. I haven’t even got off my ass to get another phone yet,” Jade lied to him as well.

“Well get on that. You need money?” Taylor asked and Jade rolled her eyes. Of course, he’d offer to buy her a phone like nothing.

“No,” Jade refused quickly, “I got cash I’m just lazy.”

“Cool. Well, text your number when you get one, ‘kay?”

“Okay. Here’s your girlfriend back. Bye Taylor.”

“Bye Jade,” Taylor said before Jade handed the cell phone back to Lena.

“Satisfied?” Lena asked before laughing at whatever Taylor said after. Jade looked back up to the sky and felt like a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders. Everything was finally fixed, say for lying about not currently having a phone, but that could be remedied as soon as tomorrow. She’d have to remember to text Nacho later and thank him again for buying her a new one.

~-----~

Since Tammy and Lena had shown up, and Jade had gotten the courage up to text her new number out to all her friends the next day, Jesse had been pressing her to get ahold of that marijuana he wanted for his party. She had held off asking Nacho, mostly because she felt like he would absolutely refuse. But now, three days before the party, Jade had backed herself into a corner. She managed to wait it out until Nacho had stopped his van in her neighborhood in the usual spot, dropping her off after a night of dealing Oxy and crystal meth for him.

“Can I ask you a question?” she blurted quickly before she could open the passenger door on his van and go home for the night.

“What question?” Nacho asked her, but his facial expression changed when he saw how suddenly nervous Jade had become. “What question?” he asked again with a different tone, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips turned down.

“I… do you know where I can get pot?” she asked, dreading the silence that followed after she had asked.

“No,” he finally responded to her, the singular word sounding sharp.

“No?” she repeated, but she wasn’t sure what other answers she had expected from him. He probably would have reacted the same way if she had asked to buy meth or Oxy off of him.

“You’re not asking me to get you pot,” he told her, both his hands on the steering wheel of his van as if silently telling her to get out and go home. “Ask one of the junkies you sell to, they’d have contacts.”

Bravely, Jade took her hand off the handle of her door and placed it in her lap with her other hand before leaning back in her seat, showing him that she wasn’t about to be scared off by his sudden bad mood. “It's not just for me,” she admitted.

“Who else—?”

“It's for a party,” Jade cut him off, not willing to listen to Nacho talk about Corey and Joel when she herself had hardly spoken to either of them since she had broken up with Corey. She was also sure that he knew this fact, he had been giving her rides to Tampico and home alone, without a single mention of the guys.

“You’re throwing a party?” he asked her after another moment, and Jade understood his skepticism after the last party she had been to.

“No, not me. And it's not like that last party. I know these people, we all went to high school together,” she explained.

“You haven’t said anything about a party,” Nacho spun the conversation around, rightfully anxious about Jade going to another party.

“Yeah, the last time I had a chance you kind of… broke my phone…” Jade explained, “I haven’t really been able to ask after but… it's in like three days so…”

“You’re asking me,” Nacho started before sighing, his hands leaving the steering wheel to run along his face. He leaned back in his seat as well, crossing his arms before looking back to Jade. “You want me to get you marijuana, enough to supply a party, that’s in three days?” he clarified and Jade nodded.

“Yeah, I know its short notice—”

“Fine,” he sighed but Jade nearly didn’t believe his answer.

“Wait, really?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I’ll get you the pot.”

“Th—thank you,” she told him, feeling herself relax now that he wasn’t as upset with her.

“Just this one time. Don’t ever ask me anything like this again, okay?” he clarified and she nodded quickly in understanding. “How much?”

“Um,” Jade started chewing on her bottom lip. “Like, as much as you can?”

Nacho sighed again, not liking her answer. “If you had the cash I could have several kilos for you in three days. I need to know how much,” he told her and Jade’s eyes went wide.

“What?” her eyes widened in disbelief.

“Jade,” he warned and she quickly snapped herself out for her stupor.

“There’s, like, I think Jesse said a couple dozen people would be there at most?” she told him and again Nacho looked disappointed.

“Pinkman? This is Pinkman’s party?”

“We’re buddies, okay?” Jade forced an innocent smile.

With another sigh, Nacho held out his hand, presumably for her night’s pay. “Can I take that or do you need it?”

“No, take it. That’s cool,” she handed the small roll back to him.

“I have three days?” he asked and she nodded. “I’ll try to have it for you by tomorrow but no promises.”

“Nacho,” she laughed, “You’re amazing. Thank you.”

“Yeah. I’ll, uh… I’ll keep in touch,” he told her and she finally opened the door to his van to let herself out.

“Thanks again. You’re a fucking lifesaver,” she told him, unable to stop smiling even as she closed the door and started her walk down her street towards her home.

~-----~

“It’s so… colorless.”

“It looks great!”

Jade looked up from the banana she was peeling from her perch on the ledge of the bathtub. Her friends Lena and Tammy were at her house again, and the three were dying Tammy’s short hair black. For the past year or two, it had been a wild combination of neon, bleach blonde, and rainbow. Rather than try to cover up the faded colors in her hair this time, and try to bleach her roots without frying her hair, Lena had talked her into dying everything black.

“You look awesome,” Jade smiled over at Tammy. “Lena was right, that second layer of dye we put on really covered everything up.” Tammy’s hair was about as black as Jade had ever seen, and almost had a blue sheen to it. Still, Tammy looked dissatisfied.

“I don’t know…” she said, picking up the handheld mirror and turning around to check the back of her head as well.

“There’s nothing else we can do but shave your head, babe,” Lena joked and Tammy laughed.

“Yeah, that’d go over great. I wouldn’t look like a chemo patient at all.”

“Not with eyebrows,” Jade mentioned, taking a bite out of her banana.

“Right, we’d have to shave those too,” Lena added and Tammy rolled her brown eyes, turning around and putting the hand mirror back on the counter next to the sink.

“Can we get out of this bathroom? I’m so tired of looking at myself,” Tammy said and Jade nodded, but not before Lena stood up from her seat on the closed toilet lid.

“It’s not like there’s anything else to do here,” Jade stood up as well, hearing her phone beep in her jean shorts’ pocket. She was wearing jean shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top, having miraculously reached her limit on baggy clothes. It was mostly due to her not wanting to do laundry, but it also felt nice to not be swimming in a band shirt and baggy jeans in ninety-degree weather.

“Bullshit, you have a pool and a trampoline outside. I would have killed for that in my childhood home,” Lena laughed and Jade shook her head, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“You really wanna go swimming with her hair?” Jade asked, pointing to Tammy’s hair before pulling her cell phone out of her back pocket. Since they hadn’t used permanent dye, it was likely to fade the second water touched it.

“I’m just saying.”

Jade flipped her phone open, dreading the text she had received when the front screen read “New Text From: Cheesy Chips”

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Are you home?

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
u said i had the day off :( 

She flipped her phone closed and shoved it back into her pocket, wondering if she could just ignore him instead.

“None of us have any money to go to the mall or something, huh?” Tammy asked, arms crossed.

“I do, actually,” Jade said before she could think. Mentioning the thousands of dollars under her bed probably wasn’t that great of an idea, even to her best friends. “I mean,” Jade added. “It’s probably only enough for smoothies or something.” Before she got a response from her friends, her phone beeped again.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Do you want your pot or not?

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
yes please :)  
Text: 2/2  
im home now but i was about to leave

“Jade,” Lena called her attention away from Nacho’s text.

“Huh? Yeah?” she asked, looking up quickly from her phone.

“Are we going then or not?” she asked hands on her hips. Tammy was stood behind her, already in the hallway. Both of them looked immediately ready to leave.

“Yeah, let’s uh…” Jade started to agree but Nacho had quickly text her back.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
You aren’t carrying this. Wait 20 minutes.

“Actually, we gotta wait here for a bit,” Jade looked back up to her friends, standing up from the ledge of the bathtub before taking a quick bite from her banana

“Why?” Lena asked, crossing her arms.

“Because,” Jade started looking between her two best friends, “I’m, uh… Someone’s dropping something off for me,” she explained and Lena looked like she understood first.

“Oh. For Jesse’s party?” she asked before changing her question, “Someone delivers to you?”

“What? No, it's a one-time thing,” Jade tried to explain but Lena’s inquisitive look quickly turned into a smirk.

“Who you got in your pocket, girl?” she laughed before leaving the bathroom as well and walking towards the other end of the hallway and into Jade’s bedroom. Jade looked back to Tammy then as she caught up with the topic.

“Drugs?” she asked quietly and Jade nodded, easily reading Tammy’s discomfort.

“Sorry Tams,” Jade told her as she walked towards the open bedroom door as well, walking past Jade.

“Its okay, its nothing,” Tammy shrugged, quickly pretending that she wasn’t bothered. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what she was getting into with Jesse’s party.  
Jade was the last in her room, closing the door behind her, before texting Nacho back.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
let me know when youre here

As he said, about twenty minutes later, Nacho had text her back.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Round the corner like usual

“I’ll be right back guys,” Jade spoke up over the conversation the three were currently having about what to do after getting smoothies at the mall.

“What, no front door service?” Lena teased as Jade stood from her perch at the foot of her bed, empty banana peel in her hand.

“With Charlie and Elle home? Hell no,” Jade laughed before leaving her room, closing Lena and Tammy inside. Jade didn’t bother responding to Nacho’s text since she was only about two minutes away anyways, and headed for her front door instead, making a pit stop in the kitchen to toss her banana peel in the trash. She then made her way outside and to the sidewalk on her side of the street, heading for the usual corner Nacho would drop her off at.

Jade rounded the corner of her street and was immediately met with Nacho’s van, parked on the curb as usual. His driver side window was already rolled fully down so she walked up to it before resting her arms on the open window, leaning against his van

“Excuse me, sir, your hideous van is upsetting the neighbors. I’m gonna have to ask you to move,” she told Nacho with a fake posh accent and as straight of a face as possible. For a moment Nacho looked completely unamused by her joke until her façade broke and she started laughing.

He ran a hand down his face but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “Wow. Okay,” he looked to several grocery bags on the passenger seat of his van. “You sure they aren’t just afraid of how white your legs are?” he joked back and Jade’s mouth fell open in false outrage.

“You’re the one who’s kept me in baggy clothes all summer so far. These are your fault,” she told him, pulling away from his window to cross her arms over her chest.

Nacho looked over her outfit once, quickly, before saying, “It’s weird seeing you in clothes that actually fit.”

“Dick,” she huffed and Nacho smiled at her insult.

“So I guess you don’t want your hash then?”

“Nah, I only walked out here to see you, but then you started insulting me,” Jade lied, leaning against his door again.

“Yeah, sure,” Nacho reached into one of the bags and pulled out a box of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts. He handed the box over to her and Jade immediately realized it didn’t have Pop-Tarts in it. Despite that, she still opened the top and confirmed what she had suspected. Inside was a sandwich bag that was just about full of marijuana. Quickly she closed the box again and looked back up to Nacho.

“This…” she pointed to the box, her eyes still wide. “This is…”

“Yeah, that’s what you wanted, right?” Nacho asked her, before shifting in his seat so he could pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Uh, well,” Jade tried to cover up her surprised expression with something less than impressed. “Is it bad if I’m kind of disappointed there’s no Pop-Tarts in here?” While she spoke, Nacho had pulled several twenty-dollar bills out of his wallet and kept them in his hand.

“Really?” he asked her before laughing. “Wow. Fine,” he told her before reaching back into the same grocery bag as before. He pulled one of the foil packs of Pop-Tarts out of the bag before handing it over with the dollar bills.

“Seriously?” she asked, slowly accepting them.

“Your change,” Nacho explained, “And your Pop-Tarts.”

“I have change?” Jade asked him, before reopening the box to put the pack of Pop-Tarts and the two bills inside along with her pot.

“Wasn’t cheap but it’s not like I’m getting it from a dealer,” Nacho shrugged before replacing his wallet in his back pocket.

“Do I owe you anything?” Jade asked, half ready to pull the twenty-dollar bills back out and hand it over to Nacho.

“No. You can pay me by never asking me to do this again,” Nacho told her seriously and Jade nodded.

“Yeah, I know. It’s a one-time thing, like you said,” Jade remembered what he had told her the night he agreed to do this.

“Be careful with that, too. Don’t get caught—”

“Really?” Jade cut him off. “Carlos already explained to me what to do if I get picked up,” Jade stepped back from his van so she could cross her arms, keeping the Pop-Tart box in her right hand.

Nacho sighed before stating, “Fine. One more thing though.”

“What thing?” Jade asked him.

“I need the address of the party.”

“Why?” Jade asked him with a frown.

“You know why,” Nacho sighed.

“What, so you can crash Jesse’s party?” Jade questioned him.

“No, so I can come get you when something goes wrong,” Nacho rose a knowing eyebrow at her.

“When? Not if?” Jade questioned but she was already pulling her cell phone out. “I don’t have his address offhand, hold on,” she explained as she pulled up Jesse’s contact and called him.

After three rings he picked up with a short, “Yo.”

“Hey Jesse,” Jade smiled, turning away from Nacho and leaning her back against his van door.

“What’s up? You, uh, working today or what?”

“No, I have a quote-unquote day off today,” she looked back to Nacho to see him shake his head while he scanned her quiet neighborhood. “I actually need something from you.”

“Oh… uh…” he responded after a moment and Jade’s smile grew. He probably thought she was going to ask him to pay her back for those free eights she had given him.

“I just need your address, Jesse, jeez. Calm down.”

“You don’t remember where I live?” he laughed but sounded relieved. “Man, I meant nothin’ to you apparently.”

“Shut up Jess. I remember where you live I just don’t know the address,” Jade sighed, before falsely explaining, “I need it for the bus routes.”

“Five-oh-nine Eleventh Street,” Jesse told her without much persuasion on her end. “North West. There’s a South West too on the other side of town, don’t go there.”

“Five-oh-nine Eleventh Street North West,” she looked back to Nacho and watched him type the address into his cell phone. When he was done he nodded at her. “Thanks, Jesse.”

“No prob. So, uh, hey. Did you get ahold of that… that thing I asked for?” Jesse asked and Jade laughed at him.

“‘That thing’?” she quoted, figuring he was around his parents or something. “Yeah, I got the weed. Literally like two minutes ago,” Jade admitted.

“But you, like, got enough?” he asked quietly and Jade rolled her eyes.

“Jesse,” she sighed, “It’s a lot okay? We’ll be good.”

“You are effing amazing,” he told her in relief. He was definitely around his parents or something.

“Well thanks,” Jade smiled, before adding, “I’m gonna let you go. I got Tammy and Lena over anyways.”

“Keep in touch, I’ll see you… soon,” he told her instead of saying “tomorrow”.

“Later Jesse,” she told him before pulling her phone away from her ear and ending the call. “Happy?” she looked back to Nacho then, turning around to face him again with her elbows resting once more through his open window.

“Yeah,” he stared at her a moment before adding, “Call me if you need me, okay?”

“I probably know everyone that’s going to show up. I’ve partied with them before,” Jade told Nacho, hoping he’d relax.

“That’s fine. Still call me,” he responded after a moment but he didn’t look any less on edge after what had happened at the last party she was at. “And don’t do anything stupid with that,” he looked to the Pop-Tart box still held in her hands as he turned the key over, starting up his van’s loud engine.

“I’d say no promises but I guess I do promise?” Jade stepped away from his van, raising her voice to speak over the engine. “Relax, Nacho, okay?”

He rose an eyebrow at her before sighing out a response, “Okay.” He started off afterwords, slowly driving away and Jade watched his van for a moment before getting out of the street and walking back to her house, Pop-Tart box in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while editing this for posting, I realized Nacho says "Pendejo" which pretty much means "idiot". I've had it translated before but figured I'd mention it here.
> 
> I'm so excited for Jesse's party you guys, I'm not gonna lie. I'm going to try and have it edited and beta read before the end of the month so it should be up around then, maybe the first few days in February. Also, can February 23rd come any faster? I seriously took a long weekend off work for the two-day premier, that's how excited I am.
> 
> Anyways! Thank you guys so much for the kudos and comments I got on the last chapter post. It's one of the best reactions I've had so far to a chapter and it makes me so happy you guys don't even know. And of course, I have to thank my boyfriend for being my all around beta reader/English to Spanish dictionary/ Illegal activity reference/ Nacho personality moderator... Yeah like everything, he helps so much.


	10. Favorite Transgressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade sees Corey for the first time since their breakup at Jesse’s party. A game of truth or dare seemingly shreds any chance of reconciliation between the two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Sleigh Bell's song "Favorite Transgressions" .
> 
> This chapter is about 20 novel pages and Grammarly estimates it will take about 34 minutes to read.
> 
> As with the previous chapters, this chapter takes place after the events of season one of Better Call Saul, so potential spoilers are ahead for that season.
> 
> No Spanish is used in this chapter. As far as content warnings there's a brief moment where someone gets sick. I also did use the "C" word a couple of times 🤷 if that needs a warning.

“You think this was a dumb idea?” Tammy asked as the bus started moving from one of the route’s stops.

“What?” Jade asked her, arms holding her backpack tight to her chest. For a second she thought Tammy was asking about the Pop-Tart box full of marijuana she had inside her bag, hidden from the world by only a few zippers and faded black canvas fabric. 

“I don’t even know any of their songs,” Tammy looked up from the hem of the shirt she was wearing. It was a black tee-shirt with a yellow Wu-Tang Clan symbol over the chest that Jade had stolen from her brother for Tammy to wear to Jesse’s party.

“I got my CD player, we can stop by a record store?” Jade smiled with her suggestion and Tammy shook her head. 

“No, it’s getting too late,” Tammy dropped the hem of the shirt and crossed her arms over her chest, looking to Jade on her left. 

“Yeah. I don’t even know if this bus line goes near a record store,” Jade agreed. She also didn’t want to be hauling around the drugs she had in her backpack any longer than she had to. Nacho was right to tell her she shouldn’t be carrying that much, but she didn’t have a choice at this point. 

“Probably not,” Tammy sighed. “When’s our stop?”

“Jesse said there’s a stop right at eleventh and he’s just down the street. What’s this street say?” Jade asked and they both turned to look out the window, reading the street they were at. 

“Fifteenth? So we're close,” Tammy turned back around with another sigh. 

“You okay?” Jade asked her friend. 

“Just nervous,” she admitted, not bothering to look over to Jade as she scanned over the rest of the passengers on the bus with them. 

“Don’t be,” Jade reached up to pull the rope above them as they approached their stop. When the bus stopped for them, Jade was the first to stand up, slinging the straps of her backpack over her shoulders. Tammy followed her off the bus and, in silence, they started down 11th Street. In another minute, they were already at the corner of 11th Street and Roma Avenue.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jade asked, hearing Tammy sigh.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m good,” Tammy crossed her arms over her shirt.

“It’s gonna be fine, okay?” Jade reassured her, before pulling her cell phone out of her pants pocket so she could text Nacho and let him know she got to Jesse’s without any trouble.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
got to jesses ok 

“I know.” Tammy watched Jade flip her phone closed before it was replaced in her pocket. “It’s just,” Tammy paused for a moment, looking towards the front door of Jesse’s house, “a lot at once.”

“It’ll be fun, trust me,” Jade started down the walkway towards the front door. “If you want, we don’t have to smoke or drink,” Jade suggested and Tammy rose both her eyebrows in surprise.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” she asked Jade.

“Us, you and me. You don’t have to do anything and I won’t either,” Jade clarified, hoping that this could possibly alleviate some of her anxiety. Nacho would feel a thousand times better about it also, but it’s not like she would mention it to him until after the fact.

“You sure?” Tammy questioned, “I don’t want you to feel left out…”

“How am I gonna feel left out if I’m gonna hang out with you all night, Tams?” Jade smiled, starting to walk backwards towards the front door of Jesse’s parent’s house. “Come on, let’s go.”

Tammy smiled back but didn’t respond before Jade reached the front porch, turning around to knock on the front door. By the time Jade’s hand fell away from the wood of the door, Tammy was standing next to her, waiting with her. While waiting, Jade heard her phone beep in her back pocket and she reached for it, pulling out to check if it was Nacho who had responded.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Thanks 

Briefly, Jade thought he could have text at least more than one word. Before she could respond, the front door to Jesse’s house opened and she looked up from the small screen, immediately returning the smile Jesse had on his face.

“Hey, guys,” he looked to Jade as she shoved her phone back in her pocket without responding to Nacho, and then to Tammy who stood silent next to her.

“Hey,” Jade answered him as he stepped aside, revealing only one other guy in the otherwise empty house. “Are we, like, early?” she asked him, walking through the threshold, with Tammy quietly following behind her, before she quickly hugged Jesse. She could have sworn Jesse told her to show up at eight.

“Naw,” he closed the front door behind them after their brief hug, “You two are just the first people to show up.”

“He’s here,” Jade pointed to the other taller guy in the entryway with them.

“Hi,” he nodded and waved with a dorky smile on his face.

“Who, Badger?” Jesse laughed. “He’s always here.”

“Badger?” Jade asked, finding the name odd. “Hi.”

“Yeah, that’s Jade,” Jesse introduced her to him, before pointing to Tammy, “And that’s… she is… shit.” Jesse’s smile slid off of his face, and Jade immediately crossed her arms, frowning.

“Seriously?” she asked him.

“I know her name,” Jesse said in defense of himself, “It starts with, like, a ‘T’ or something.”

“I told you her name like ten times!” Jade sighed, looking to Tammy to see her already weakened self-esteem just crumble.

“Hold on, I know it, hold on,” Jesse pulled his phone out quickly, presuming to check the texts where Jade had told him Tammy’s name.

“I’m Tammy,” she spoke up quietly from next to Jade and Jesse looked up from his phone.

“Tammy, fuck,” Jesse sighed. “I’m a dick, I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“It’s cool,” she responded just as quietly.

“I won’t forget,” Badger reassured her, “I’m not shit with names like he is.”

“Dude!” Jesse turned to his friend, immediately offended.

“You immediately insulted the first two chicks at your party man. What the hell?”

“Shut up,” Jesse shoved him before looking back to Jade and Tammy, immediately smiling again, “You girls want a beer? He bought them already.”

“I’m good,” Jade shook her head, looking to Badger and figuring he could pass for twenty-one if he wasn’t already.

“Tammy?” Jesse then asked and Jade was surprised by her response.

“Yeah, sure,” Tammy responded instantly as if she wasn’t thinking. Jade looked to her friend, seeing her try to immediately cover up her own surprised expression with a smile.

“Sweet,” Jesse responded before looking back to Jade, “What’s up with you?”

“I, uh…” Jade couldn’t come up with a response fast enough as Jesse started heading towards the kitchen of the house, and she followed, along with Badger and Tammy. “Seriously we’re the first people to show up?”

“Well, yeah, but like people are coming now. Corey and Joel are on their way. You’re still cool with that right?” Jesse asked, walking to his fridge before opening the door and revealing, surprisingly, that it was full of beer bottles and cans.

“Yeah, as long as he’s cool with it I don’t care,” Jade shrugged before looking to Badger.

“I guess Lena and Taylor will be late. Combo too,” Jesse continued, grabbing out three beer cans.

“Combo? Seriously?” Jade asked as he turned around. “How many of my exes did you invite?”

“Really?” Jesse laughed. “Not my fault you dated, like, half my friends. And I can’t invite myself to my own party,” he smiled cheekily, handing Tammy her beer before handing Badger his, and Jade rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. Where did you get all that?” she changed the subject.

“Had a few people chip in. Badger went around to, like, four different Walmart’s,” he admitted while opening his own beer can, and Jade laughed.

“Oh sweet. So I think you’re my new beer contact then. You’re twenty-one?” Jade turned and smiled at Badger, clarifying her earlier suspicion.

“Barely a couple weeks ago,” Jesse stated as if he were proud.

“Yeah, cool. I’m down,” Badger smiled back at her as Jade pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“Gimme your number, I’ll hit you up some time,” she handed it to Badger and he flipped it open, immediately pressing buttons.

“So… You still got the uh… other stuff right?” Jesse asked, using his elbow to close the refrigerator door.

“The ‘other stuff’?” Jade asked him, “Wow. Yeah, I was able to bring the pot, Jesse.”

“Oh, sweet, that’s you?” Badger asked, looking up from her phone for a second and Jade nodded, letting her backpack slip off her shoulders before she moved towards the kitchen counter to set it down.

“The other supplier for Jesse’s party?” Jade asked with a smile before she unzipped the backpack and pulled out the Pop-tart box. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Is that full of weed?” Jesse asked, his jaw going slack as he handed Badger and Tammy their beers.

“It totally is,” she handed it to him and he checked the box before even opening his own beer.

“Holy shit,” he looked up at Jade before setting his unopened beer can on the counter and pulling the bag of weed out of the box, “It was full of pot.” It wasn’t as full as when Nacho had given it to her yesterday, she had to admit. Not because she had already dug into it, but because Lena had begged her for some and Jade couldn’t say no. Still, it was probably way too much for a party with a couple dozen people.

“Dude, I thought the booze was impressive,” Badger stated with a similar expression to Jesse as he handed Jade’s phone back. “That’s a lot of pot.”

“It’s gonna be the best you’ve ever had in your life too, look at that,” Jade stated proudly and Jesse opened the bag to smell it. “There’s like no seeds or sticks or anything.”

“Okay, I’m gonna smoke this, like, now,” Jesse stated, before rushing out of the kitchen.

“Dude, grab your bong!” Badger called after him, before following.“Get the bong!”

“Are you okay?” Jade looked to Tammy as she shoved her phone back into her pocket. She hadn’t even made a move to drink her beer.

“Yeah,” she barely responded and Jade motioned for her beer. Without a second word, Tammy handed it over and Jade forced half of it quickly into her mouth and down her throat.

“Here,” Jade handed the beer back to Tammy, before wiping her mouth.

“Thanks,” she accepted it. “I didn’t even know what he was saying, I just said yes. I’m so dumb.”

“You’re not dumb, you just need to calm down,” Jade smiled at her. “Drink that half and then just chill. Jesse’ll be too high to notice you’re not drinking after.”

“Yeah, sure,” she didn’t seem settled by Jade’s words.

“We’ll be fine, I promise. If you really want, we can leave in a few hours. I got someone who can pick us up, okay?” Jade tried reassuring her, but Tammy only nodded, trying a sip of beer. For all Jade knew, it could have been her first. “C’mon, let’s go find the guys.”

“Okay,” Tammy nodded, and Jade grabbed her backpack off the kitchen table, before leading her through the house towards Jesse’s room.

“Yo, you wanna leave your bag in my room?” Jesse asked, already leaving with Badger and his bong.

“Yeah sure. Put your shit in it, Tams,” Jade handed her backpack to Tammy, who opened the front pocket and put her house key and wallet inside before zipping it off and handing it to Jesse. Since Jade’s own wallet and house keys were inside, she figured it would be a good idea so she wouldn’t lose them. Jesse put the backpack on his unmade bed before dragging a beanbag chair from the floor and closing the door. After, he led the girls back to the living room where Badger was already prepping the bong on a coffee table.

Jade walked to the couch and plopped down, and Tammy quietly followed her, sitting on the couch as well, watching Badger with a slight frown.

“You still like ice?” Jesse asked, leaving the beanbag next to Badger, walking backwards towards the kitchen so he could still face Jade and Tammy.

“I was gonna hold of until, you know, actual people showed up?” Jade told him quickly before Tammy could accidentally agree.

“Whatever, people are gonna show up,” Jesse told her before turning around. He returned a few seconds later with a large cup of water, handing it to Badger. “You sure?” he asked as he plopped onto his beanbag.

“They probably get this shit every day,” Badger told him before Jade could say “no” again. “Here, it's your bong. You start it,” Badger pushed int in front of Jesse who sat up on the beanbag to start his first hit.

“I actually don’t know if I can get this ever again. I was judged so hard asking for it,” Jade smiled at Badger, before glancing at Tammy next to her. The poor girl was sitting stiff and looked uncomfortable.

“You care what Krazy thinks of you?” Jesse laughed at her, coming back up for a second before he took the bowl out of the bong.

“I didn’t get it from Krazy, I got it from someone else,” Jade told him, thinking back to the glare Nacho had given him a few nights ago.

It took him a moment after coming back up before Jesse responded to her. “Whoever you got this from is my best friend,” he stated, voice slightly raspy as the smoke left his lungs.

“That won’t go over very well with him,” Jade laughed. “Its good though?”

“It's fucking amazing,” Jesse leaned back in his beanbag. “Hit that” he pointed at the bong as he looked to Badger. Before he could move the bong in front of him, they were interrupted. At the sound of knocking both Jesse and Badger looked at each other in confusion.

“That’s the door,” Jade stated, looking between them both.

“Oh, shit,” Jesse laughed, half rolling off his beanbag before he stood up and jogged to the door. In his absence, Badger grabbed Jesse’s bong. Over the bubbling, Jade could hear Jesse enthusiastically greeting Corey and Joel. She looked to Tammy next to her once Jesse had disappeared from view.

“This gonna be bad?” Tammy asked her quietly.

“No, we should be cool,” Jade reassured her, hoping that was true. Her and Corey’s breakup had been pretty bad and she hadn’t spoken to him since. Nearly forgetting that when she finally saw Joel and Corey Jade gasped when she saw them enter the living room. Specifically, she was very surprised at Joel’s appearance. He was wearing a baggy Echo shirt and some graffiti graphic printed jeans, along with a gold chain around his neck and, most surprisingly, he had cut his long hair off. He’d done more than that, he’d practically given himself a buzzcut.

“Whoa, you cut your hair?” Tammy spoke up before Jade could.

“You dyed yours?” Joel asked with a smile as both girls stood from the couch to greet him and Corey. “I like the black, it looks good,” Joel told Tammy, hugging the smaller girl before hugging Jade.

“Thanks,” Tammy’s hand went to her darkened hair before she looked at Corey. “You too?” she asked and Jade looked to her ex to see that he had taken the hood from his jacket off his head. It looks like he had completely shaved his head maybe a week or two ago and what she was seeing was the regrowth.

“It looks good,” Jade told him, waiting for Tammy to quickly hug him before deciding to do the same.

“Thanks,” Corey said, and despite trying to hide it, he looked surprised that Jade was hugging him. “Uh, Carlos said I looked like a skinhead,” he added as she pulled back and ran one of her hands over his scalp.

“And he’s a cholo. So?” Jade laughed, taking a step back so Corey’s arms would fall away from her. “Both of you look great, who’d a thought?”

“Thanks,” Joel answered, running his hand over his shaved head. “Made my mom cry though, so I feel kinda bad about it.”

“You made your mom cry?” Tammy asked, giving something similar to a gasp.

“Well, your hair was longer than mine,” Jade shrugged, before looking back to Corey, who had kept his eyes on her the whole time.

“Yo, guys,” Jesse joined the conversation, “Jade brought this dope ass weed. Like, we literally just lit it up right now,” he told Corey and Joel as he made his way back towards the living room.

“So you did talk to Krazy?” Joel asked Jade, but she didn’t have time to answer.

“She asked Nacho,” Corey told him before Jade could even respond. Instead, her eyebrows furrowed at her ex.

“How’d you know?” she asked him, suddenly realizing that even though they both said they’d be cool with each other, that everything wasn’t magically okay between them.

“Lucky guess,” Corey shrugged.

“Uh, okay,” Jesse noticed the sudden tension and attempted to direct everyone's attention back to his newest and, apparently, most prized possession. “But seriously, you guys have to try this shit.”

“This is, like, god-level man. Get over here!” Badger agreed.

“We’re gonna need some extra chairs,” Jade looked to Jesse then, forcing a neutral face. “I’ll grab some from the dining room. You guys want a beer? There’s literally an entire fridge full,” she turned back to Corey and Joel before backing towards the kitchen.

“Yeah, cool,” Joel agreed and Corey only nodded before heading towards the living room and Badger.

“Just grab one of the six-packs, I think we all need another? You haven’t even started,” Jesse pointed towards the kitchen and she gave a thumbs-up before turning around and silently sighing. She had told Tammy she wouldn’t drink, but apparently, that wasn’t an option now. Maybe after Jesse had a few beers of his own he wouldn’t notice her and Tammy not drinking.

After walking herself to Jesse’s kitchen, Jade pulled open the fridge door and laced the fingers of her right hand through the plastic rings of a six-pack. She nudged the fridge door closed with her hip, before walking to the dining table. Realizing she couldn’t carry two chairs as well as the beer, she set it on the seat of one of the chairs and settled for dragging the chairs back to the living room. On her way back, the doorbell rang and Jade dropped the chairs, yelling “I got it!” over the bubbling of Jesse’s bong in the living room.

“Thank you!” Jesse yelled back at her as Jade checked the peephole in the door. She almost smiled when she saw Taylor and Lena on the other side of the door except that Taylor had also shaved his head.

“Why is everyone—!” Jade started to ask as she opened the door but was immediately cut off by Taylor literally picking her up to hug her. “Jesus Christ!” she laughed instead.

“I haven’t seen you in months and all I get is a Jesus Christ?” Taylor asked her.

“Put her down,” Lena smacked Taylor’s back, and Jade noticed, that a couple feet in the air above her friend, that Lena had a bottle of wine in her hand.

“You brought wine?” Jade asked as she was finally set down.

“Yeah, well, somebody wanted to snatch a bottle of something from a grocery store and for some reason, this is what left with him,” Lena held the bottle up after quickly hugging Jade herself.

“You grabbed wine?” Jade looked back to Taylor with an eyebrow raised.

“I panicked,” he shrugged as Jade let them into the house.

“Badger already bought about a thousand beers so we’ll be okay,” Jade laughed. “Anyway, the guys just showed up, and Tams is in the living room with them. I was trying to bring more chairs,” Jade pointed at them.

“On it,” Taylor instantly volunteered, quickly carrying them as well as the six-pack off.

“How’s Tammy doing?” Lena asked Jade while they were still in the entryway.

“She’s… drinking a beer,” Jade answered and Lena's jaw dropped.

“Seriously? Tams is drinking?”

“I think she panicked? Jesse asked if she wanted one and she was immediately into it,” Jade shrugged. “I also showed Jesse the weed I brought and he and Badger immediately dove into it so she’s dealing with that also.”

“Poor girl. At least she’s around Jesse. He’s not ignoring her is he?”

“No, but he forgot her name immediately.”

“Asshole,” Lena sighed. “Whatever, it can’t get worse than that right?” she asked before waving Jade back to the kitchen.

“Not unless he has a secret girlfriend who’s gonna show up,” Jade told her, walking back to the fridge to grab another six-pack since it was no longer enough for everyone in the house. When she turned around she saw Lena looking through the drawers before pulling out a corkscrew.

“No, he’s single. Unless something happened literally in the past twelve hours. I had Taylor find out,” Lena turned around and winked as she worked the cork out of the wine bottle. “C’mon, babe. I hear that bong going and I don’t want them to smoke all that weed you brought without us,” she smiled and Jade followed her back to the living room.

~-----~

The neck of the empty wine bottle slowed to a stop, pointing almost directly at Jade. “Shit,” she sighed, looking over to Lena, who already had a devious smile on her face. “Truth,” she said quickly but the other players verbally disagreed.

“Naw! No way you’re doing truth, again!” Jesse laughed, sat in his beanbag chair with Tammy next to him. Like with the beer, it didn’t take long until she was pressured into taking hits from the bong with the rest of them. Jade thought it was oddly sweet how excited Jesse was to teach Tammy how to use his bong. She also had to admit that taking hits immediately helped Tammy relax. Eventually, Jade’s own inhibitions failed her and she was smoking and drinking with the rest of them.

“You’ve chose truth every time, you gotta choose dare!” Lena accused Jade from the opposite end of the couch, speaking over the music that was going and the other party-goers who had eventually shown up at Jesse’s door.

“Lena, no, I—” Jade tried protesting, but no one in the circle was having it.

“Gotta choose dare, you’ve reached your truths cap,” Taylor chimed in, laughing from his girlfriend’s right, sitting on one of the dining room chairs Jade had dragged out, along with Joel on his other side.

Jade looked from Lena to Taylor, and then around at the others, anxiety filling her gut. “Oh God, what do I have to do?”

“Make it good, she’s gonna go right back to truths after this,” Taylor told his girlfriend as she thought.

“Striptease?” Badger suggested and Jade’s eyes went wide as Lena laughed.

“No!” Jade quickly protested.

“Can we please not have my ex strip tease right now? Fuck,” Corey sighed and Jade looked back to him.

“Thanks,” she smiled, leaning closer to him on the couch as if he would protect her.

“Nuh-uh, I’ve already seen her naked. There’s not much to see,” Lena laughed and Jade flipped her off jokingly. “I dare you, Jade, to… send a text to every contact in your phone saying ‘What's up sexy?’”

“What?” Jade sat up straighter then, “I can’t do that!”

“It’s a dare, you gotta do it,” Jesse pressed her.

“I can’t. I literally cannot do that. What about my parents?” Jade looked to Lena who was laughing at her reaction with her boyfriend. “I’ve got Corey’s mom and sister. I’ve Joel’s parents too,” she continued, “I have Tam’s grandfather, you want me texting him that? We’re gonna get in so much trouble, Lena!”

“Fuck, okay, hold on,” she waited, thinking for a moment.

“You can’t change the dare,” Badger complained, “You guys wouldn’t change any of mine!”

“Okay, okay, I’m not changing it. I’m amending it, okay?” Lena offered and looked back at Jade. “You have to text ‘What’s up sexy? Thinking about you winky face’ to every contact in your phone except for our parents and guardians.”

“…Really?” Jade asked, still feeling like she might get out of the dare.

“Really,” Lena confirmed and Jade sighed, waiting a moment before pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“I hate you so much,” she said, leaning back on the couch so that she was shoulder to shoulder with Corey. After, she flipped open her phone and navigated to her texts. With a heavy sigh, Jade started a new text, scrolling through all of her contacts in her phone and weeding out any of their parent’s or guardian’s phone numbers before typing the phrase “What’s up sexy? Thinking about you ;)” into the message portion with T9. “Do I seriously have to—?”

“Yes!” Lena laughed and Jade forced herself to press send, trying not to think about all the people she had just text.

“Done,” she breathed out evenly, flipping her phone closed and setting it on her thigh, hoping that nobody would respond. Moments later, people's phones started buzzing or beeping around her and the circle erupted in laughter.

“Yo, oh my god, she did it!” Jesse had his phone out first, and Jade hid her face with her hands.

“She really sent it to everyone, man!” Badger laughed with him.

“Why did I do that?” she groaned, hearing her own phone buzz in response to the mass text. She dropped her hands to check her phone and was relieved to find that Tammy had responded first.

From: TimTam  
Text: 1/1  
Just at the best party ever :)

“Is it though?” Jade looked over to her and Tammy nodded. She looked back to her phone as she received two more text responses, this time from Lena and from Badger.

From: Lenabean  
Text: 1/1  
;p <3

From: bagder  
Text: 1/1  
brave as tits woman

“Dude,” she started to laugh, only just then realizing that Badger had spelled his own name wrong in her phone. “You spelled your name wrong, look,” she laughed as she showed him.

“Oh shit,” Badger took a second, seemingly reading his own contact name over a couple of times with bloodshot eyes. “I did spell it wrong,” he laughed after another moment she laughed, receiving more texts from the circle.

“I’m not changing it, you’re Bagder now,” Jade told him as she started to check the rest of her texts.

From: Tayluh  
Text: 1/1  
Who is this???????

“Taylor, shut up,” she laughed, reading the next text message.

From: Joelbear  
Text: 1/1  
lmao!!

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
this is dumb

Jade looked over to him, knowing that he was struggling to have fun with this stupid game, before texting him back.

To: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
sorry dare the next person to do something funny 

By the time she had responded she had received several more texts, this time from outside her party group. “Oh my god, my brother just responded,” Jade ran a hand down her face, not even wanting to read what he had text her and deleted the message before responding him back.

To: Lilbro  
Text: 1/1  
playing truth or dare dont worry bout it

“Jade’s gonna be preoccupied for a while. Corey, it’s your turn,” Lena spoke up and she realized that she might just feel obligated to respond to every text she got back, explaining why she had sent what she did.

Taylor passed Lena Jesse’s bong after she rolled the wine bottle closer to Corey. Next to Jade, Corey reached forward, spinning the bottle on the coffee table in the middle of everyone’s seats. The neck landed on Taylor and without hesitation or before he was prompted, he said, “Dare.”

“Snort hot sauce. Jesse, what hot sauce do you got?” Corey didn’t miss a beat.

“Huh?” Jesse looked over to him, taking a second to catch up with the quickly unfolding dare. “Tabasco maybe? I’ll grab it.”

“No, what?” Lena looked concerned, coughing out her smoke from the bong. “‘Snort hot sauce’? What the fuck Corey?”

“She just had to text everyone in her phone. He’s gotta snort hot sauce,” Corey explained, nodding to Jade, who looked up from the flood of texts she was getting back.

“I got this, it’s okay baby,” Taylor patted Lena’s knee. Jesse had already gotten up and headed towards the kitchen. “Beer? Who needs a beer?” Taylor asked, “Everyone?” Jade only gave him a thumbs up, engrossed in her texts again.

To: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
r u punishing lena

She took a second out of her responses to text Corey again and he quickly read it.

“I got you, babe,” he whispered to her, but Jade wasn’t sure how to feel, the “babe” thing almost made her want to tell him off but she was also glad that someone had her back in this game. In response, Jade only flashed a smile back at him before moving through her texts again. Her heart suddenly stopped as she got a short flood of texts in all capital letters.

From: AvoidBilly  
Text: 1/7  
FUCK YOU  
Text: 2/7  
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW  
Text: 3/7  
GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF YOU CUNT

“Holy shit,” Jade gasped as they kept coming. “Billy is pissed, fucking Christ,” she looked up from her phone to look at Corey and then Tammy.

“Billy as in your ex Billy?” Tammy asked.

“Billy as in the guy whose heart you ripped out the summer after sophomore year?” Lena laughed.

“Yeah, that Billy,” Jade laughed as well, despite the string of violent texts. “Like, I think he’s trying to murder me through text, look.” Jade leaned over Corey to hand Lena her phone and the smile slipped off her face.

“Oh fuck no, he’s raging,” she had one of her hands over her mouth, reading through all the texts. “Why do you still have his number?”

“That’s what I was just thinking,” Corey asked next to her and Jade tried not to roll her eyes.

“Joel and Taylor both had it. I took it back when I got my new phone so I’d know who he is if he texts or calls me. See how he’s got that ‘avoid’? Yeah, I can’t do that if I don’t know his number,” Jade defended herself.

“Taylor!” Lena yelled over the party, looking towards where he had wandered off with Jesse. She didn’t get a response, obviously, so she looked to Joel. “Joel, text Billy and tell him to chill the fuck out. He’s calling her a cunt and shit. Tell him that he’s going to give himself a hernia,” Lena told him and, obediently, Joel pulled out his phone.

“What did you do to this guy?” Badger asked and Jade turned around to answer him.

“I kinda took his virginity and dumped him the next day,” she answered and he openly laughed.

“Oh man, that’s heartless,” he told her, finding it funny when nobody else left in the group did.

“Did you read all these?” Lena asked and Jade looked back to her.

“I got like three in,” she answered her friend.

“I’m deleting them, ‘kay?” Lena kept focused on Jade’s phone. “Oh, and Ponytail says ‘Hola’? What? He’s really flirty with that response,” she laughed, but Jade felt her heart sink to her stomach. If she had text Arturo, she had also text—

“Oh, and,” Lena paused to laugh again, “‘Cheesy Chips’ says ‘Hey beautiful’. Wow, who is that?” Lena asked but Jade quickly snatched her phone back, seeing those very words on her screen in a text from Nacho, accompanied by a second text from him.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Hey beautiful  
Text: 2/2  
Hows the party? Youre that wasted already?

Immediate relief filled Jade and she leaned back into the couch with a sigh.

“Nacho is in your phone as ‘Cheesy Chips’?” Corey quickly put two and two together, and Jade felt that relief vanish.

“Its a joke. I’m making fun of his name, okay?” she answered him before responding to Nacho.

“But why is he calling you beautiful?” he asked but before she could answer, Tammy piped up.

“Because she is. Duh.”

Jade only smiled at her as she quickly responded to his texts.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
playing truth or dare thats what that text was

“So… Who is Nacho?” Lena asked, looking to Corey.

“He’s…” Jade looked to him as well, wondering how in-depth to go.

“He’s our supplier. Pretty much our boss,” Corey answered for Jade. “You have him to thank for that dank weed.”

“Nacho is a saint, tell him I love him,” Badger tapped on Jade’s shin to get her attention.

“Give that man my number, I need to know where he gets his shit,” Lena told Jade seriously, “Tell him to hook me up.”

“I dunno, he… doesn’t operate like that?” Jade shrugged, getting another text from Nacho as Jesse and Taylor returned to the circle.

“What’d we miss?” Taylor asked, setting several beer cans on the coffee table. “Why’s Jade blushing like that?”

“I’m blushing?” Jade asked, quickly feeling her cheeks, but she didn’t feel warm at all.

“Billy went ape shit on her, I tried to tell you but you didn’t hear,” Lena answered him as she grabbed one of the cans. “Oh, and some dude named Cheesy Chips called her beautiful.”

“He said it sarcastically, he already guessed I was wasted,” Jade quickly defended herself and Nacho.

“Cheesy Chips, huh?” Jesse asked, setting a bottle of Tabasco on the table. “Who's that?”

“Guy who got Jade this dope pot, man,” Badger answered as Jesse sat back down next to Tammy, casually slipping his right arm around her shoulders.

“Tell him that he’s beautiful for getting us that weed, yo,” Jesse told Jade seriously and she laughed at their reactions, shaking her head.

“Tell him he is God for that shit. Find out where he got it from,” Taylor added.

“He got it from himself, he’s the supplier,” Joel tried explaining, grabbing for one of the beer cans as well.

“Like he grew it?” Taylor asked and Jade found herself laughing.

“No, like he’s got his own connections. Besides he told me it was a one-time thing. I don’t know if I can get a hold of more,” Jade told them all.

“Treat that shit like gold,” Taylor pointed to Jesse before pouring out a line of Tabasco onto the coffee table. After he knelt in front of it. He set the bottle down before pulling out a cut plastic bendy straw from his jeans pocket. “This is for you man,” he looked to Corey before bending down and snorting the line of liquid like a pro.

“Oh my god,” Tammy quickly turned away and Jade followed suit, afraid that Taylor would vomit from his immediate gagging and the snot pouring from his nose.

“No, that’s so gross!” Jade whined, making sure he stayed out of her sight with a hand over her eyes.

“Badger, grab him those tissues,” Jesse laughed and Jade could hear Lena start gagging also.

“Babe! Go wash your nose out or something, fuck!” she sounded just as disgusted as Tammy looked and Jade felt.

“Is it over?” she asked, hearing Taylor blow his nose loudly before gagging again.

“Nope, not over,” Tammy answered her and Jade peeked through her fingers to see her with her Wu-Tang Clan shirt pulled over her eyes and her head buried in the crook of Jesse’s neck.

“Go to a toilet, shit,” Joel yelled and Taylor’s gagging eventually faded.

“You happy, dickhead?” Lena asked and Jade finally looked up to see her glaring at Corey as she handed him the bong.

“He’s the one who did it,” Corey pointed out, setting it on the coffee table in front of him before reaching for two of the beer cans and handing one to Jade, who took it silently.

“He had to, that’s the game. Fuck, he was fearless about it though,” Jesse rubbed a hand over his face as Tammy pulled her shirt back down and came out from hiding in Jesse’s side.

“That was so gross,” she stated and Jade nodded, agreeing as she opened her beer up and took a sip.

“Super gross,” she said, before checking her phone again. She was using it for a distraction, seeing Domingo and Nacho had replied.

From: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
What?

To: Krazy8  
Text: 1/1  
just a stupid dare sorry domingo :)

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Way to crush my ego

Jade didn’t know how to respond to that, she figured he was still being sarcastic but… it felt different. Whether it was the beer, pot, or a true feeling, Jade felt like he was being serious.

“Jade, babe,” Lena caught her attention, and her blue eyes snapped up from her phone and to her friend. “Your turn, Taylor’s probably gonna be a while.”

“Oh,” she responded, still struck by the text. She took another drink from her beer before she leaned forward to spin the bottle on the table. After a few seconds, the neck slowed to a stop, pointing at Jesse.

“Oh shit,” he smiled, looking up from the bottle to meet Jade’s gaze. “I’m kinda scared now.”

“Truth or dare?” she asked, already knowing what dare she wanted to give him and fought with herself to not glance to Tammy next to him.

“Dare?” he asked hesitantly, but kept his smile.

“Kiss one of us.”

“What?” he asked quickly. Jade didn’t want to flat out tell him to make out with Tammy, the girl would probably feel like it was too fake or get upset with her later on. Jesse had to do it himself.

“Kiss. One. Of. Us,” Jade repeated slower, before adding, “Choose before I make you kiss Badger. Three seconds.”

“Dude!” Badger responded first, sounding afraid that Jesse wouldn’t make a choice in time.

Almost immediately, Jesse turned to Tammy on his right and his lips crashed onto hers before the poor girl even understood what was happening. For a horrifying second Jade thought Tammy would pull away or freeze, but she quickly responded after her initial panic, going as far to allow Jesse to pull her on top of him. Sitting on the floor between them on the bean bag and Jade on the couch, Badger wolf-whistled and on the other side of Corey, Lena laughed, giving Jade a thumbs up. She knew just as well as Jade how long Tammy had a crush on Jesse.

“Jesus Christ, kids. I said kiss not fuck,” Jade laughed, looking back to Nacho’s text. She decided to say screw it and respond like he was being serious.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
never said it wasn’t true

Jade flipped her phone closed, feeling nervous butterflies fill her stomach, realizing she was intentionally flirting with Nacho. She tried drowning the feeling with more beer, but it didn’t help. When she looked up again, Tammy was climbing off of Jesse, resuming her position next to him but her face was blushing a violent red. Jesse himself looked smug. “Next!” he told Jade and she laughed at him.  


“Badger, your turn,” she added and he reached forward, spinning the bottle. His force was a little too enthusiastic but it eventually settled, stopping on Lena.

“Truth or dare?” he asked, barely able to keep himself composed before laughing himself.

“Oh god…” Lena sighed, “Dare?”

“Swap clothes with Jade.”

“Say what?” Jade looked over to him from watching Corey prep the bong for her. She had figured she was safe as long as the bottle never pointed to her. “Lena?”

“I won’t fit in her clothes, have you seen how skinny she is?” Lena asked him in disbelief before meeting Jade’s confused stare.

“Dare’s a dare ladies,” Jesse called them out.

“Like, what clothes? All of our clothes?” Jade asked, hearing her phone go off again but ignored it at the moment. Corey had nudged her as well and she leaned forward to take her hit, breathing the smoke in deeply before leaning back on the couch and counting out a few seconds.

“I love her but I’m not wearing her bra and panties, dude. Sorry.”

“Just switch your dress with her shirt and jeans,” Corey suggested, his arms crossed over his chest as he sat back and watched.

“C’mon, babe,” Lena sighed, standing from her seat and holding her hand out for Jade.

She exhaled slowly before grabbing for Lena’s hand and pulling herself up. “We’ll be right back,” Jade handed her beer to Corey before following Lena through the house to an empty bedroom, Jesse’s little brother’s by the looks of it.

“There’s no way those jeans are fitting, what size are you?” Lena asked, pulling her gray tank dress over her head before sitting on Jake’s bed.

“Uh,” Jade said, her head still swimming from her last hit. She couldn’t remember and had to pull her jeans off first to check. “These are fives.”

“I wear a twelve, are you kidding me?” Lena laughed through her discomfort. “There’s no way I’m squeezing this ass into those jeans.”

“Besides being naked, is that a bad thing? I wish I had an ass. Any ass,” Jade made herself laugh though the joke was for Lena. She was trying to make Lena feel better, and upon seeing Lena’s frown Jade turned around and showed her backside to her.

“White girl curse?” Lena sighed. “You know I was just joking when I told the guys there wasn’t much to see with you naked, right?”

“There’s really not. It’s like my body forgot how puberty works,” Jade laughed at herself, pulling her shirt over her head and handing her clothes to Lena, who offered her the dress.

“You’re pretty. You think you get all these guys chasing after you just because you’re nice?”

“Aw, you think I’m nice?” Jade asked, pulling the gray dress over her head. The jersey fabric wasn’t as form-fitting as it was on Lena, and it was about two sizes too big. The neckline of the dress also sat too low, revealing nearly all of the black bra she was wearing. Jade looked up to Lena, who was now wearing her baggy Nine Inch Nails band shirt.

“Sometimes,” Lena winked, not even bothering with putting on Jade’s pants. “This dress has adjustable straps, you’re lucky,” she added, stepping behind Jade, and she pulled her blonde hair to the side to give Lena access. She pulled the straps tighter and the dress, though still loose and very low on Jade, at least concealed her bra cups.

“Thanks,” Jade told her and turned around.

“Thank me by putting on a few pounds for next time,” Lena laughed. “Also, go get me like a towel or something from the cupboard in the hallway we passed. I’d feel bad for stealing a little kid’s bedsheets.”

“Okay,” Jade laughed at her, silently agreeing as she looked to the sesame street themed toddler bed. “I’ll be right back,” Jade told her, taking her phone with her into the hall and closing Jake’s bedroom door, before finally checking her phone.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Is that true for Arturo and Carlos also?  
Text: 2/2  
Im glad you dont have Tucos number

“Great,” Jade sighed, quickly texting him back before heading for that cupboard.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/3  
i was dared to text everyone doesnt mean I think theyre all sexy  
Text: 2/3  
besides arturo just said hola  
Text: 3/3  
and carlos is a dick he didnt even respond

Jade grabbed a fluffy beige towel from the cupboard and started back for Jake’s room when Nacho text her back.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text 1/2  
Just me then?  
Text:2/2  
You really are a maneater

“Oh my god,” Jade sighed before entering the bedroom.

“What?” Lena asked, waiting on Jake’s bed with Jade’s jeans in her lap.

“Nothing, still getting texts from people,” Jade passed her response to Nacho off. “Here’s that towel.”

“Thanks, babe,” Lena stood up from Jake’s bed and accepted the towel, wrapping it around her waist as if she had just taken a shower. “This is so shitty,” she said once she was done.

“I’m sorry,” Jade pouted, feeling genuinely bad for her friend. “Hopefully this dumb game is almost over,” she added before looking back at her texts, wondering what to respond.

“We’ll swap back right after,” Lena laughed before opening Jake’s bedroom door again. Jade took a quick moment to respond to Nacho before following.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
says the man who doesnt date  
Text: 2/2  
poor girls dont stand a chance

“Coming, babe?” Lena asked and Jade nodded, flipping her phone closed and moving to put it in her pocket, before realizing Lena’s dress didn’t have pockets.

“Oh shit,” Jade laughed at herself before closing Jake’s door behind her.

“Shitty thing about dresses,” Lena shrugged. “Won’t fit in your bra, will it?”

“I’ll just hold onto it,” Jade shook her head, hoping she wouldn’t lose her new phone because of some stupid dare. She followed Lena back to the living room.

“What the fuck?” Taylor was the first to notice them, his nose still red and eyes watery, but otherwise unfazed after returning from the bathroom. “Did they dare you to wear a towel?” he asked his girlfriend.

“Whoa, Jade in a dress?” Jesse laughed.

“Yeah man, that’s insane,” Joel added.

“Shut up, I haven’t worn a dress since elementary. Don’t make this worse,” Jade told them both, reclaiming her seat next to Corey as Lena sat on his other side.

“So, Badger, you satisfied?” Jesse asked once they were both settled in their seats.

“Satisfied?” Lena questioned Jesse’s choice of words.

“Yeah, this is great. You’re up, mademoiselle Tammy,” Badger nodded to Tammy on the beanbag with Jesse before reaching for the bong.

“Oh great,” Tammy sighed sarcastically before reaching forward and spinning the wine bottle on the coffee table. It only spun around a couple times before finally settling on Joel. “Truth or dare?” Tammy leaned forward slightly on the beanbag to get a better view of him around Jesse on her left.

“Y’all are crazy, I’m doing truth,” Joel told her.

“Tam would never make you snort hot sauce or swap clothes,” Jade told him and he laughed. “She’s too sweet.”

“Yeah, I’m not taking chances. Truth,” he answered again with a laugh.

“Okay, um…” Tammy said, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought. She looked to Jade after a moment, as if she was looking for help. She stayed quiet and Tammy looked to Corey, then to Badger, then Jesse, and finally to Lena and Taylor. “I don’t know,” she finally answered, “I wasn’t prepared this time.”

“Say the first thing that comes to your mind, we don’t care,” Jade told her.

“Yeah, anything,” Jesse agreed but Tammy still looked unsure. 

Jade took the chance to check her phone again, reading Nacho’s texts and ignoring the rest.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Dont worry about them they arent as fragile as you.  
Text: 2/2  
Still playing?

“The fuck?” Jade whispered to herself, wondering what he meant by her being “fragile”.

“You really can’t think of a truth?” Badger asked Tammy, pulling Jade’s attention back to the game. She glanced up at Tammy from her phone.

“I don’t know!” she stressed and Jade felt sorry for her, wondering if she should throw her suggestions.

“I’ll take whatever you got. It’s okay,” Joel reassured her and Tammy rubbed at her face. 

“I don’t… like… Do you pee in the shower?” she asked, shrugging and Jesse, next to her laughed.

“Doesn’t everybody?” Joel asked and Jade’s head snapped to him.

“What?” she asked.

“Dude, no,” Corey agreed next to her on the couch.

“You weirdos, you don’t pee in the shower?” Lena asked them.

“No!” Jade responded, before taking a moment to text Nacho back.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
yea just learned half of my friends pee in the shower

“Yeah, its called a toilet, yo,” Badger agreed.

“Everyone pees in the shower, it’s a thing!” Joel tried defending himself. “Right?”

“No, man, it’s not,” Taylor tried arguing but Lena quickly turned on him.

“You’ve peed on me in the shower before! Don’t lie and say you don’t!”

“Dude, what the hell?” Jade covered her ears. “I don’t wanna know this!”

“Fuckin’ shower pee-ers, all of you,” Corey actually laughed at them.

“I totally thought it was a normal thing,” Joel’s face dropped, his embarrassment showing.

“It is, babe, these dicks are just being prudes,” Lena reassured him.

“How is cleanliness being a prude?” Tammy laughed at her before glancing at Jesse, who had been silent throughout all of this.

“Oh my god, Jesse, not you too,” Jade realized as he was trying not to laugh, and he pulled his beanie down over his eyes.

“Stop judging us!”

“Dude that’s sick,” Badger told him. “So not cool.”

“Can we drop this please?” he laughed before looking at Tammy. “Please?”

“Okay,” Tammy nodded, accepting Jesse’s plea. “It’s your turn. Help me again with that,” she told him about the bong and he took it from Badger.

“Shit,” he sighed before laughing again, reaching for the bottle and spinning it hard before setting up the bong for Tammy to take a hit. Jade dropped her eyes back to her phone, hearing Nacho text her back.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Thats the kind of truths you’re asking?

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
its a mix one of us was just dared to snort tobasco

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Just to let you know I’m judging you so hard

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
my friends do not me!

“Jade,” she looked up to Jesse who had called her name before her stomach sank in realization. “I dare you—”

“Oh, fuck that. No, I was dragged into Lena’s dare and I’m still dealing with the aftermath of my last one. I get a truth this time,” Jade argued and none of the circle seemed to protest like last time.

“You sure?” Jesse asked her, raising an eyebrow with a devious smile, and Jade tried not to feel nervous.

“I’m sure. Truth,” she confirmed, figuring that there wasn’t anything too embarrassing he could ask her.

“Okay, fine. When’s the last time you had an orgasm?”

Jade actually laughed at his question before rolling her eyes. She wondered if he was trying to get back at her for the "kiss one of us" dare she gave him. “Like never,” she answered before looking back down to her phone. When her brain could actually catch up with the question and the truthfulness she had actually answered it with, Jade immediately froze. “I mean,” she looked to Corey quickly, who already looked shaken by her answer. “Like… wh-when's the last time we… that we…”

“He didn’t ask the last time you had sex, Jade” Corey told her, a hint of anger in his voice. “He asked the last time you got off.”

Jade couldn’t do anything but blink in response. Sure, she had been faking it but it wasn’t a slight against him, she had never gotten there with any guy she had been with. That didn’t necessarily mean he was bad…

“Holy shit,” Taylor spoke up, “Holy shit! She's faking?”

“Jade?” Lena asked from the other side of Corey and she suddenly felt like she was being attacked.

“What?” she nearly yelled back at them. “I never said that! I didn’t say that at all!”

“It’s a truth, you can’t lie,” Corey told her. “Did you or did you not fake it?”

“That’s not what Jesse asked me,” Jade refused to answer, trying to scoot away from him on the couch but she was already at the edge.

“Did you fake it?” Corey asked for himself, over pronouncing his words, and Jade contemplated moving completely off the couch and sitting on the floor with Badger.

“Corey, chill out man—” Joel tried to speak up but Corey snapped at him.

“No, you stay out of this!”

“Oh shit,” Badger spoke up from Jade’s left, still sounding shocked and she glanced at him, seeing his mouth hanging open. She looked to Tammy and Jesse then. Tammy had one of her hands over her mouth and Jesse suddenly looked remorseful for asking what he did.

“Dude, girls fake it sometimes, okay? Lena fakes it sometimes, I don’t care,” Taylor tried to calm him down next, realizing that this wasn’t something to laugh off.

“It’s not like you guys. Sometimes we just don’t get there. It's okay—” Lena tried adding in.

“No, it’s not okay! Both of you shut up!” Corey yelled at them before turning back to Jade. “Did you fake it?”

“I’m not answering that—” Jade tried before Corey stood up from the couch and Jade immediately recoiled from him.

“Whoa, man, just chill, yo?” Jesse sat up in his beanbag and Joel jumped to his feet, grabbing onto the back of Corey’s hoodie.

“Just calm down okay? It’s just a game, we’re all fuckin’ wasted and saying stupid shit. Okay?” Badger sat up on his knees also, holding his hands up in a calming gesture, and Jade suddenly realized that everyone was afraid Corey would snap and attack her.

“Just answer the question, Jade, that’s all I want,” he told her, unable to pull himself free from Joel’s grasp.

She waited a moment, feeling her own heart pounding in her chest and realizing she was just as scared as everyone else. Instead of answering verbally, she nodded and watched him finally calm down.

“Thank you,” he told her, his shoulder’s falling before he turned around and pulled himself free of Joel’s grip to walk away from the circle.

“Corey, man, wait!” Taylor tried calling after him but Corey flipped him off without even looking back.

“You okay?” Jade heard Tammy ask quietly and Jade looked away from Corey’s back and to her, before realizing she was suddenly everyone’s focus.

“I, uh…” she looked around to everyone before quickly standing up from the couch as well. “I gotta pee,” she said quickly and rushed away from the group.

“Jade!” Tammy called after her but she didn’t turn around, she only headed for the closest bathroom in the house and once she was there she locked herself inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a thing happened just a few days ago. That thing is that this story officially passed 150,000 words in my Scrivener file, which was my original very high goal for this whole thing so... I don't know what I'm doing with my life 😊 It's chill though, I love writing this.
> 
> Anyways Sorry Combo is missing from this. I actually wrote most of the Truth or Dare scene maybe nine months ago and I maybe forgot he existed? My bad. I did realize back in December that he was missing but I couldn't fit him into the game and besides, this chapter's bordering ten thousand words as it is. Also, I'm sorry for the lack of Nacho in this one (those texts though 😉).
> 
> Speaking of Nacho, I've been contemplating writing in his POV for forever now, but I was always scared it would feel out of place or that it'd be jarring since this has strictly been in Jade's POV for the past ten chapters. Despite this, I wrote an alternate scene from back in Chapter five in Nacho's perspective and... I kind of like it? And the boyfriend liked it? So maybe you guys will also? I'm most likely going to post that one (and other Nacho POVs I write) in a separate work and group that and this story into a series. I should be out later this week/early next week. And, keeping with the new chapter every two weeks, Chapter Eleven should be up after Valentine's 💕.
> 
> Lastly, I want to thank you all for the love you gave me for the last update, and I want to thank my boyfriend for beta reading.


	11. The Less I Know the Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the aftermath of the Truth or Dare game, Jade admits the same confession to Nacho. Later, he agrees to pick her and Tammy up from Jesse’s party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about 19 and a half novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 35 minutes to read.
> 
> The spoiler warning for season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other content warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Lastly, there's no Spanish used in this chapter.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text:1/1  
omg I hate this stupid game

Jade had shut and locked herself in the bathroom about as quickly as she had walked away from the game of Truth or Dare with her friends. She got a couple of knocks and questions, mostly from Lena and Tammy, but Jade was able to persuade them that she was fine. Only after they had left her alone did Jade allow herself to cry.

She had only text Nacho after she had been sitting on the edge of the bathtub for a few minutes. When she had text him, Jade hoped he would keep up with his oddly snarky and kind of flirty texts. She didn’t quite expect him to call her immediately after.

“Hey,” she answered her phone, clearing her throat just before in hopes of sounding normal.

“Are you crying?” Nacho immediately asked her over some loud music in the background.

“What? No,” Jade responded quickly, rubbing at her nose. “What are you doing? Are you at a rave?”

“Strip club,” Nacho answered her honestly before asking, “What’s wrong?”

“You’re at a strip club? You’re ignoring strippers to call me?” Jade forced a laugh.

“It’s… not recreational,” Nacho admitted, the music fading away in the background. “It’s business.”

“Oh, are we expanding to that now, also?” Jade questioned and heard Nacho laugh. “Is that my new job?”

“You wouldn’t last a single night stripping,” Nacho told her flat out and Jade couldn’t quite feel upset or offended.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she admitted, shifting her weight on top of the bathtub’s ledge.

“So, what’s wrong?” Nacho asked her and Jade tried to think of a response before he added, “Do you need me to pick you up?”

“Huh? No, I’m… I’m okay,” she lied.

“It’d take probably an hour but I can come to get you. Are you safe?”

“I’m… Nacho, I’m okay,” she reiterated.

“Why were you crying?” he asked and Jade couldn’t help but roll her eyes, sniffing since she couldn’t convince him otherwise. “And what’s ‘omg I hate this stupid game’ mean?”

“I…” Jade rubbed at her eyes with a sigh, clearing them of any remaining tears. “I don’t even want to tell you. You’d judge me so hard.”

“I’m not already judging you?” Nacho asked her.

“Oh, jeez. Thanks for that,” Jade sighed, though it sounded like he was only kidding.

“Jade, come on,” he sighed as well. “What happened?”

“I kind of, uh,” she started, nervously playing with the hem of her dress. “I’m scared you’ll get mad at me.”

“Why would I get mad at you?” Nacho asked, his tone suddenly and completely serious.

“I—I mean, it has nothing to do with you or anything. It's just… you gave me so much crap for dating Corey in the first place, and then again after we broke up.”

“What did you tell him?” Nacho already sounded like he had an idea where this was going. “You’re back together?” If she didn’t know any better, and she probably didn’t, Nacho sounded slightly disappointed.

“No, no!” Jade quickly shot down his thought. “It’s just… I, uh, admitted to… faking it… when we, um… you know…” Jade struggled and didn’t get any sort of response from Nacho after. “Nacho?” she asked, thinking the call might have dropped.

“I… wow. Okay. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Can you not, please?” Jade asked, leaning forward and propping her forehead up in her free hand, her elbow on her bare knee.

“So, what, he asked you that in the game?” Nacho obliged and moved on.

“No, it was someone else.”

“Someone else asked if you were ‘faking it’?”

“No, no that wasn’t the question. Jesse— Pinkman— asked me when was the last time I had gotten off and, because I’m an idiot, I told him flat out that I never had gotten off before and—”

“Hold up, what?” Nacho stopped her and Jade stayed quiet, wondering what he didn’t understand so she could explain.

“Corey was sitting next to me but Jesse is the one who asked me—”

“You admitted to never having gotten off before? Ever?” Nacho clarified and Jade was flooded with embarrassment.

“Yes,” Jade groaned, realizing exactly what she was telling Nacho. She didn’t get the response she thought she would from him, but this wasn’t much better.

“And… What did Corey say?” Nacho moved on, sensing Jade’s discomfort.

“He flipped his shit, what do you think?”

“What did he do?” he was suddenly serious again.

“He got pissed and started yelling at me. How else would he react?” Jade answered him.

“Where are you? Are you okay?” Nacho asked her and she realized that he was genuinely concerned.

“I’m… yeah, I’m okay. I’m in a bathroom.”

“What about your ex?”

“He… I dunno. I think he left? He stormed out of the house,” Jade answered, completely unsure of what happened to him after she had locked herself in the bathroom.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Nacho asked her again.

“I am, I just needed a breather,” Jade admitted. “You should get back to tits and whatever else you’re doing at the strip club.”

“Call me if he comes back and hassles you, okay? Or if anyone else bothers you, or—”

“Nacho,” Jade stopped him, trying not to laugh at how concerned he was. “I’m gonna start crying again if you don’t have tits in your face in the next ten seconds.”

“I told you it’s not rec—”

“Sure it ain’t,” Jade shook her head, unable to stop smiling now.

“…Fine,” Nacho gave up, sighing again. “If Corey comes back, or if there’s another creep, or if you—”

“Nacho,” Jade stopped him, laughing, “I get it. If I need you I’ll call. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed with a sigh and she heard the music fading back in through Nacho’s phone. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Have fun,” Jade teased and brought her phone down from her ear, ending the call. She looked at the screen then, realizing that Carlos had text her while she was talking with Nacho.

From: Beard  
Text: 1/2  
Why would I respond to a mass drunk text when I got strippers?  
Text: 2/2  
Im not desperate like Nacho.

Jade’s hand flew to her mouth to stop herself from loudly laughing after reading his text. No doubt Nacho had voiced her irritation with him not responding to her dare text.

To: Beard  
Text: 1/2  
youre so mean :(  
Text: 2/2  
how is he desperate

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
i knew you werent at a strip club for work ;)

Jade flipped her phone closed and went to shove it into her pocket before remembering that she was still in Lena’s dress. She has a feeling that Corey’s freak out had effectively ended the game, so her next order of business was finding Lena to swap back clothes. She stood up then, before blowing her nose and trying to clean up her running mascara and eyeliner with the toilet paper and water from the sink. When Jade finally unlocked and opened the bathroom door, she was surprised to see who she was looking for standing immediately outside, waiting for her.

“Hey,” Lena smiled, greeting her with caution. She was leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom and looked to be mid-conversation with Badger.

“What’s up, guys?” Jade asked, taking in Lena’s odd attire. She was still wearing her Nine Inch Nails band shirt but she was also wearing some kind of teal, stretchy, old lady capris.

“Jesse’s mom’s,” Lena clarified, seeing Jade’s confusion. “Her entire wardrobe was this atrocious, trust me. This was the best option.”

“I’ll grab my jeans and we can trade back?” Jade suggested but frowned at the look Lena shared with Badger.

“Yeah, your jeans are missing,” Badger turned back to Jade.

“Really? It’s been half an hour,” Jade sighed, crossing her arms and then immediately dropping them, afraid that the gesture would reveal her bra or create a dangerous amount of cleavage with how low Lena’s dress was sitting.

“They’re not in Jake’s room or the living room or anywhere else we looked,” Lena added. “Sorry babe.”

“Sorry you’re stuck in a band tee and mom pants,” Jade shrugged as tried not to care. She had money that was more than expendable, she could buy more jeans if they weren’t found. “What happened to uh… everyone else?”

“Joel and Taylor are talking to Corey out front, trying to chill him out,” Badger answered and Jade’s shoulders fell.

“He stayed?”

“Yeah, it’d probably be best versus him walking home shit faced and pissed off… You okay though?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jade threw back on her facade. “What about everyone else?”

“Jesse and your other friend are probably hooking up,” Badger added.

“Tammy?” Jade clarified and looked from Badger to Lena.

“Oh yeah. After he grabbed me his mom’s pants I left them in the master bedroom with his hand practically up Tam’s shirt,” Lena laughed and Jade couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s been like four years coming, I swear,” she told Badger, explaining her and Lena’s enthusiasm.

“Yeah? Well, he’s into her,” Badger nodded but still looked bummed out. Jade figured Jesse had pretty much ditched him to get laid, and the other party-goers were all from their old high school so Badger might not know anyone.

“So, you’re gonna stay, right?” Lena asked.

“Should I not?” Jade asked, confusion wiping the smile off her face.

“No, you should stay too. It's just…”

“I’ll avoid Corey,” Jade nodded. “Bathroom is pretty chill, I can just hang in the tub,” she added as a joke and Badger actually laughed at her.

“Yeah, bathtubs are great,” he added and Jade tried not to laugh at him.

“No,” Lena shook her head at him before turning to Jade. “You shouldn’t hide. You didn’t do anything wrong, anyways.”

“Yeah, if anything I feel kinda bad for you,” Badger added and Jade looked back to him, appreciative of his sympathy until he continued. “You know, I’d be willing to try—”

“Badger,” Lena stopped him quickly.

“No, it’s okay,” Jade declined just as quickly.

“Stop talking okay? Drop that,” Lena told him, placing a hand upon his shoulder.

“Oh, okay. Cool,” he shrugged but looked visibly disappointed that Jade didn’t want to sleep with him.

“So,” Lena dropped her hand from Badger’s shoulder. “Either of you have any papers? Bong’s gone missing and I already checked the kitchen for oranges or something.”

“I didn’t bring any, no,” Jade shook her head, watching Lena sigh.

“Guess we can try foil? Heard bad shit about that before though.”

“I think there’s an orange tree down the street in one of the neighbor’s yards?” Badger suggested, but Jade didn’t feel like tromping around on someone else's property near midnight to steal citrus fruit. By the looks of it, neither did Lena. “Or…” Badger seemed to realize that neither of the girls liked that idea. “I have some Adderall?”

“You holding out on me, Badger?” Lena quickly turned to him. “Why is this just coming up now?”

“Just thought of it,” he shrugged and waved them along with him. “Left it in Jesse’s room. C’mon.”

“What…” Jade started, “What’s it do?” She wasn’t familiar with Adderall, she mostly stuck with booze and weed. She had tried coke once with Taylor and Lena, and during a high school graduation party she took Molly, but that was it.

“It’ll make you feel amazing, that’s what it does,” Lena smiled, grabbing onto Jade’s hand and pulling her along.

~-----~

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
You hold my attention better than they can.

From: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
Hes desperate because hes chasing a teenagers tail allover ABQ

Nacho and Carlos both had responded to her hours ago. Jade never figured out what to text back to Carlos, and it was enough to make her feel guilty and quit texting Nacho, despite how perfect his last text to her was. But now, dealing with the world’s worst paranoia while sitting alone in Jesse’s back yard on a porch swing, just about all she wanted to do was talk to Nacho. In all honesty, she wanted him to pick her up so she could go back to his place and crash in his expensive bed so her paranoia would dissipate and she could feel safe.

Jade wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind, and at this point, she couldn’t talk herself out of calling the man. Quickly, she scrolled through her contacts to “Cheesy Chips” and called him. It took almost five rings, but he did eventually pick up.

“Bueno?”

“Oh shit,” Jade responded, just then realizing she was calling Nacho at a quarter to five in the morning. Of course he was asleep. “I’m sorry, I uh... Never mind.”

“Jade?” his voice was instantly clear, wide awake.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m so sorry. Never mind,” she said again, quickly pulling her phone away from her ear and ending the call. She dropped her phone to her lap and sighed, but didn’t have enough time to think of someone else to call before he was ringing her back. She hesitated, feeling the phone vibrate in her hand, wondering what would make him madder, coming to pick her up, or having been woken up for nothing. On the fourth ring, she finally flipped her phone open and tried to answer.

“Are you okay?” she heard before she could even get a word out.

“Ha, well um...” Jade pulled her legs up onto the porch swing in the back yard of Jesse’s, holding them to her chest with her free arm. “That’s kind of a loaded question.”

“Where are you? Still at the party?” Nacho asked and she could hear him moving around.

“Yeah— but I mean, I’m fine— I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m sorry,” Jade explained quickly. She thought she could hear him quietly speaking to someone else but wasn’t sure if that was just her own mind or reality.

“I’m already on my way. What happened?’

“What? Nothing!” Jade sat up straighter, feeling her heart race.

“Corey?” Nacho asked and Jade shook her head quickly, forgetting he couldn’t see her.

“No, he’s been a ghost. I’m just, uh… I think I’m, like, I’m having a bad trip but I’m fine. You don’t have to come.”

“A bad trip on what?” Nacho asked her.

“So um, like this kid, his name is Badger— like the animal— he’s like... He brought some of his head pills, ‘cause, like, I guess he’s got like—”

“Jade, what did you take?” Nacho cut her off with a stern voice.

“Adderall.” Jade kept her answer short, heeding Nacho’s tone.

“Adderall?” he asked her, “And you don’t do meth?”

“Adderall is meth?” Jade asked, dropping her legs so she was sitting crisscross on the swing, staring out into the back yard with a look of confusion and awe.

Nacho sighed. “Don’t worry about it. What else did you take?”

“Just the two pills. And then I was really great but then I started feeling like the Earth was like— never mind that’s dumb. But I smoked some pot with my friends earlier and I’ve been drinking all night, I think.”

“You think?” Nacho questioned her.

“Like I might have passed out? I don’t know?”

“Fine,” Nacho sighed heavily. “So just the pills, pot, and booze that you know of?” Nacho tried to verify with her.

“Um…”

“Jade?”

“Yes. Yeah, yes just that—those. Yes.”

“Where are you?” he asked her and Jade heard him sigh again.

“I’m at the party—”

“No, where physically?” he clarified and Jade put one of her feet down on the deck to stop the swing from swaying back and forth gently.

“I’m outside. I’m in the back yard,” she answered straight.

“Okay, go inside, go to the kitchen, and get some water,” he instructed but she frowned.

“I’m not—I’m okay, I’m not thirsty,” she protested, almost forgetting how hard it was to tell Nacho “no”.

“Jade,” he stopped her, “Go to the kitchen, grab a clean glass, and get some water.”

“Okay,” she agreed and her other leg fell off the swing so she could pull herself to her feet. She had to keep her free hand on one of the supports of the porch swing for balance. “Are you mad at me?” she asked, straightening her dress once she felt like she was standing straight, before walking to the back door.

“No, I’m not mad. You’re going to the kitchen now?”

“Yes,” she answered, half running into the sliding glass door before sliding it open and walking in, so focused on going to the kitchen that she almost forgot to close the door behind her.

“Tell me when you get your water. Use a clean cup,” he told her and she slowly walked through the trashed house like it was some sort of garbage maze leading her to the kitchen. Jade heard rustling and quiet Spanish on the other end of their call but decided not to question it, focusing instead on opening cupboards until she could find a clean glass for her water.

“Okay, I’m getting water,” she stepped over a red plastic cup on the floor of the kitchen, its sticky contents spilled and congealing on the tile, and used the glass she found to collect water from the fridge.

“Drink it, and wait for me in the kitchen,” she heard Nacho pick his phone back up.

“You’re sure you’re not mad at me?” she asked, leaning back against the countertop by the fridge.

“Yeah, I’m not mad. I’m already on my way,” he told her and instead of arguing or telling him it was unnecessary, Jade decided to pretend to be sober and simply thank him. Besides, she really wouldn’t mind seeing him right now.

“Thanks, Nacho.”

“Just… stay in the kitchen. Call me if you need to,” he ignored her previous words.

“Okay,” she agreed and again nodded though he couldn’t see. She heard him disconnect from his end, and Jade pulled her phone away from her ear, staring at it another moment before flipping it closed and taking a drink from her cold water. She stood in silence after, clutching her water and phone to her chest, wondering how long it would take for Nacho to get to Jesse’s parents' house. Jade felt like she had stood there in the kitchen for at least an hour while staring at the spilled plastic cup, and the pattern of it was slowly burning itself into her brain.

“Hey,” Jade heard, slicing through the muffled quiet of the kitchen and Jade jumped, looking up to the doorway to find Corey.

“Um, hi,” she answered him. Brief flashes of his freak out earlier in the night passed through her mind before Jade remembered that she was supposed to be drinking the water and not just clutching the glass to her chest. She moved the rim to her lips and started drinking the water in its entirety.

“Uh…” he stepped into the kitchen and noticed the spilled cup she had been staring at. “You spill something?”

Jade paused, halfway through her water with a quiet gasp. “What? No, that was here when I got here.”

“It’s just keeping you company then?” he asked, barely putting effort into laughing at his own joke.

“What? Yeah—No. No, what? It’s just a cup,” Jade shook her head and furrowing her eyebrows before continuing to chug the rest of her water.

“Are you okay, Jade?” he asked, bending down to pick up the cup and set it in the kitchen sink.

“Mhm,” she hummed into her glass, unable to nod as she drank the last of her water.

“You look kinda… strung out,” he told her before grabbing for a roll of paper towels and carelessly ripping them off, tossing them onto the spill.

“Yeah, that Badger guy,” Jade started on a rant, no longer having anything to occupy her mouth, “he’s got like these pills—”

“Adderall, right,” Corey told her.

“Right, that’s right, he’s got those and, like, I guess they think there’s something wrong with his head where—”

“Jade, I know,” Corey stopped her, “I’m friends with him.”

“They really aren’t fun,” she sighed then, dropping both the glass and cell phone from her chest, letting them hang loosely in her hands at her sides.

“I guess. If you’re not used to them,” Corey shrugged at her. “Are you doing okay?”

“I—I don’t… Yeah?” she looked at her glass, remembering what Nacho had told her. Jade moved then, filling her glass back up with water. “I’m drinking water.”

“I… see that,” Corey hesitated, setting the roll of paper towels back on the counter before asking, “Can we talk?”

Jade nearly choked on her water, trying to answer him, before pulling the glass away from her lips. After what she had admitted to him earlier she honestly wanted nothing to do with him for a few weeks. She swallowed the water still in her mouth before answering. “We are talking? This is talking?” For a frightening moment, Jade wondered if she hadn’t been verbally answering him at all. Was she just staring at him this whole time?

“I mean like… about you dumping me,” he answered her and disproved her suspicions. “And you… during sex when you were faking it—”

“Corey?” Jade quickly stopped him, “I, um…” Jade let out a shaky breath. Despite his callback to earlier that night, her mind was suddenly on Dylan. She hadn’t hardly thought about him in the past few days but suddenly she could feel him on her like he still had her pressed up against that wall. “No,” she said flat out, closing her eyes and trying to fill her mind with absolutely nothing, pushing all thoughts out.

“No?” Corey asked, suddenly upset. He wasn’t allowing Jade to block everything out like she needed to. “You dumped me out of nowhere and won’t even talk to me about it? You won’t tell me why, at least?”

“Corey, I can’t, I really can’t talk about it,” Jade looked to her phone, wondering if she should call Nacho but… Corey talking to her wasn’t really a valid reason to do so. Maybe she could text him and ask where he was?

“Jade,” Corey called her attention back to him.

“I can’t okay? I really, really, really can’t, I just can’t, I can’t,” she practically chanted back at him.

“Why? You keep saying that but it doesn’t mean anything,” Corey fought back and Jade looked at her phone again, hoping it would somehow save her. Of course, it didn’t, but someone else creeping into the kitchen did.

“Hey,” she said greeting Jesse as he hesitantly entered the kitchen, shirtless and in sweatpants with disheveled hair.

“Yo, man,” Corey immediately cooled off as well, keeping to the opposite side of the kitchen.

“Yo… sorry,” he walked further in, making his way to the same cupboard where Jade found her glass. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” he looked between them both before he spotted the spill on the kitchen floor, currently covered in paper towels. “Just need to grab some water,” he stated and stepped around Jade to get his own glass of water from the fridge.

“So… are you two like… hashing things out?” Jesse asked while the glass filled.

“Yeah, I mean no, I mean what?” Jade tried answering quickly before she held the hand holding the glass up to her head as if it would help separate and clarify her thoughts of Dylan, Nacho, Corey, and drinking water.

“You okay?” Jesse asked her before turning to Corey, who answered him.

“Badger gave her some Adderall, don’t think she’s had it before,” Corey clarified, crossing his arms.

“Oh, shit, okay,” Jesse turned back to her with a smile, offering to fill Jade’s glass back up with water. “You’ll be fine,” he told her as she dropped the glass from her forehead, handing it to him.

“I haven’t seen you around the past few hours. Combo showed up but we couldn’t find you,” Corey stated while Jesse waited for Jade’s glass to fill back up.

“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” Jesse’s smile grew as he handed Jade her glass and she immediately started drinking the water. “Been with Tammy for a while.”

“Tammy?” Jade asked with a gasp, lowering the glass from her mouth as her friend’s name exploded in her head. Was that why she felt so wrong? She and Tammy were supposed to stay together all night, what had happened to that plan?

“Yeah she got real sick like half an hour ago,” Jesse admitted, leaning a bare shoulder against the fridge door.

“Shit, where is she?” Jade asked, completely forgetting Nacho’s very simple instruction of staying in the kitchen.

“In the ‘rents bathroom. I was getting her some water,” Jesse told Jade, quickly shooting Corey an apologetic look as she left the kitchen. Jade felt like she was moving too fast and the world was trying to keep up with her, but if she slowed down at all she might be knocked off her feet by its gravitational force. By the time she reached Jesse’s parent’s bedroom, she had spilled half her water and ran almost full force into the closed door. It took her a second to remember how to work the door handle, trying to twist it like a regular knob before realizing she needed to push the handle down instead.

“Tim Tam?” she asked the room, slowly opening the door. Her bloodshot blue eyes fell on the very obviously used bed first. The pillows were on the ground and the comforter and blankets were knotted together at the foot of the bed. The lights were off in the room but the bathroom’s light was on. “Hey, Tammy?” Jade called again, stumbling into the room and walking to the bathroom at a much slower pace.

“He—ey,” Tammy greeted her as Jade entered. She had her head resting on her knees as she sat in front of the toilet. She was wearing her jeans and bra, but Charlie’s Wu-Tang Clan shirt was missing.

“Are you okay?” Jade asked, keeping her voice quiet as she struggled to set her phone and glass on the bathroom counter. “Jesse said you were sick?”

“I threw up on your brother’s shirt,” she admitted but didn’t move from her spot on the bathroom floor.

“Who cares? Charlie can deal,” Jade finally got both the glass and phone safely set down.

“Jesse might?” Tammy suggested and Jade turned around to look at her on the floor.

“I don’t think he cares. You weren’t the only person to get sick here. I promise.”

“But he’s so hot,” Tammy whispered at Jade as she sat down on the bathroom floor next to her, making sure her dress didn’t ride up too much when she did.

“I thought you didn’t care about him?” Jade teased, mimicking her friend on the floor by pulling her knees up and resting her head on them so she’d be eye to eye with Tammy.

“I do… I still like him…” she breathed and Jade heard someone else walk into the bathroom.

“Water,” Jesse said and Jade watched Tammy’s eyes move from her own to something behind her.

“If I move, I’m gonna fall through your floor,” Tammy admitted.

“Don’t do that, I wouldn’t know how to get you back,” Jesse smiled and leaned over Jade to hand the water he had to Tammy.

“Thank you,” she drew out her words, focusing on the glass of water as if she were trying not to spill it, though the water was nowhere near the brim of the glass.

“Can you stay with her for a sec?” Jesse then asked and had to add, “Yo, Jade,” before she realized he was talking to her.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” she smiled up at him.

“Gonna check the house, make sure no one stole anything,” he smirked at the two of them.

“Okay, be careful,” Tammy said as if he had stated he was going to do something dangerous, and Jade repeated her friend.

“Be careful.” Jade turned back to Tammy as he left the bathroom.

“He’s so nice,” Tammy whispered before warily taking a sip from her own water.

“What happened?” Jade smiled to her and Tammy glanced over from her water.

“Exactly what you think happened,” Tammy answered seriously, but Jade’s smile still grew and she giggled at her friend. “And then I got sick.”

“At least it was in that order,” Jade commented.

“Yeah, I know. We did like, this weird thing where he was smoking pot for me? Does that make sense?” Tammy asked but Jade took a moment to understand.

“What, like shotgunning?” Jade kept her smile as she watched Tammy sip at her water.

“No,” Tammy shook her head, “No, there wasn’t a gun. He was like, he was kissing me?”

“That’s shotgunning,” Jade giggled and watched Tammy’s face scrunch up.

“That's so violent sounding,” she said before laughing herself. It was cut short by a pained gasp. “I feel like I puked everything I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”

“I’m sorry,” Jade pouted, resting her head on her knees again to stop the bathroom from slowly spinning on a tilt. “I was supposed to stay with you. I woulda stopped you from taking too much.” She reached for Tammy’s right hand with her left and her friend took it.

“It's okay… hi?” Tammy asked and Jade wondered why Tammy had greeted her again.

“Jade?” she heard and looked back to the doorway. Even though it wasn’t his voice, she was expecting Jesse. Instead, she found Nacho leaning into the door frame and she smiled wide at him.

“Oh, hey. You really came,” she told him before realizing he had said he was on his way not even twenty minutes ago.

“Yeah, I did,” he answered but he wasn’t looking at her, instead he was looking at the bathroom counter, at her water and phone.

“Oh shit, I was supposed to be in the kitchen. I got water though, look,” Jade used her free hand to point at the glass while she kept a firm grip on Tammy’s hand with her other.

“Hardly expected you to stay put,” Nacho admitted and Jade shrugged, guilty. “You both okay?” his eyes moved to Tammy before landing back on Jade and she looked back to Tammy also, who answered for them.

“Naw. I mean yeah, but not really.”

“Will you take us home?” Jade looked back to Nacho, showing an obvious pout.

“I can’t go home, my grandpa will kill me if he sees me like this,” Tammy whispered and Jade looked to her again, the room continuing to spin after her head had stopped.

“Oh okay,” Jade said and looked to Nacho again, causing the room to suddenly spin the opposite direction. “Can you take us to my home?” she then clarified, thankful that she was already on the ground or else she may have fallen over.

“Of course,” Nacho nodded before asking, “Does she have a shirt?”

“I threw up on it,” Tammy admitted.

“Are you done?” he asked and confused both the girls. “Are you still throwing up?” he clarified and Tammy sighed.

“Yes, I’m done forever,” she admitted, drawing out the last “r” in forever.

“Jesse might have more shirts?” Jade suggested and Nacho nodded again.

“Stay here, I’ll be back,” he told them, taking on an air of authority with his tone and both of the girls agreed before he left, closing the bathroom door behind himself.

“Who’s that guy?” Tammy asked her and Jade closed her eyes, trying to stop the room from its unsteady revolution around them.

“That was Nacho,” Jade spoke with her eyes still closed. “He came to save us.”

“Oh, that’s nice of him,” Tammy yawned and Jade felt her head rest on her shoulder.

“He is nice,” Jade agreed, opening her eyes finally and looking at Tammy for a moment, wondering how her friend was so tired when Jade felt like she could stay awake for a month.

“Nice like Jesse’s nice?” Tammy asked, her eyes closing.

“He is nice like Jesse,” Jade agreed.

Tammy didn’t respond afterward and just as Jade was wondering if she had passed out, there was a quiet knock on the bathroom door. “Yo,” Jesse opened the door before Jade could even think of an answer.

“Hey,” Tammy greeted him without lifting her head off of Jade’s shoulder.

“So her boss asked me to grab a shirt for you,” he said, handing a large black tee-shirt over to Tammy from the doorway, but she couldn’t reach when she lifted the hand previously holding Jade’s. Jade reached up herself, nearly missing the shirt the first time, and handed it to her friend.

“Who’s boss? My boss?” Jade asked, handing the shirt over to Tammy.

“Thank you so much, it’s so clean. I’ll make sure it stays clean,” Tammy lifted her head from Jade’s shoulder and smiled at Jesse, but couldn’t immediately figure out how to put the shirt on.

“So, you called your boss to pick you up?” Jesse leaned further into the bathroom, lowering his voice as he spoke to Jade.

“Huh? What, no. I mean, no. I mean…” she started deciding to ignore his accusatory look. “You mean Nacho’s my boss?”

“Oh no, are we allowed to leave? Jesse, I didn’t ask you if we could,” Tammy said before Jesse could answer Jade. Quickly, Tammy lost her smile as she looked to Jesse again, managing to get one of her arms into the shirt correctly.

“You’re not a prisoner,” Jesse laughed before looking back out of the bathroom. “But really? You called your boss?” Jesse leaned back into the bathroom.

“I don’t think so? I mean he is but… I don’t know?”

“Whatever. He’s like glaring at me anyways. You got my number, Tammy?”

“Yes,” Tammy answered, her other arm in the shirt now.

“Call me tomorrow, let me know you’re okay,” he winked before stepping back, out of the bathroom, and leaving once again.

“He’s so nice,” Tammy sighed again, looking up to Jade who was trying to keep herself steady with the bathroom counter. Before she could respond, Nacho had replaced Jesse in the door frame.

“Can she walk?” he asked and Jade looked back to Tammy, who answered for herself.

“I can hardly sit,” she admitted, pulling the oversized shirt down after finally getting it over her head.

“I’m going to carry you to my van, okay?” he asked her before looking back to Jade. “Go wait on the bed,” he instructed, grabbing Jade’s cell phone and placing it in his jacket’s pocket. With the same hand, he placed it on Jade’s shoulder so he could turn her around and guide her to Jesse’s parent’s disheveled mattress. “Sit down,” he turned her again and she plopped down onto the mattress, immediately thinking how comfortable it was compared to the bathroom floor.

“Stay here until I come back, okay? I’ll carry you out too,” he explained, before adding “Jade?” when she didn’t respond. Her attention quickly snapped back to him form the mattress.

“Did I answer? Oh my god, am I really talking?” she asked with wide eyes, her hands moving to her mouth to make sure it was moving as she asked her questions.

“Stay put,” he told her again and she nodded.

“Yeah, okay.”

Nacho was satisfied with that answer and turned around, entering the bathroom and a heartbeat later he had come back out with Tammy in his arms, carrying her bridal style. He had to turn sideways to leave the bathroom, and again when he left the bedroom. Jade was left alone longer than she thought she would be and caught herself standing from the mattress, quickly sitting down again. Thankfully, when Nacho had come back for her, Jade was still seated.

“Since when do you wear dresses?” he asked her, stopping a few feet in front of her on the mattress.

“I’m wearing a dress?” Jade asked, distinctly remembering leaving her house in jeans and a baggy band teeshirt.

“Oh,” Jade looked up from the gray dress she was wearing, remembering the dare for her and Lena to swap clothes. “It’s my friends, not Tammy another one, Lena, you didn’t meet her. We were dared to swap clothes.”

Nacho nodded before saying, “You look nice.”

“I, uh— I,” Jade laughed, suddenly smiling uncontrollably and hiding her face in her hands for a moment. “But it doesn’t fit.”

“So?” Nacho shrugged, taking his hands out of his jacket pockets and offering to help her off the bed. “You should wear more dresses.”

Jade took his hand and pulled herself up, the world again shifting with her and she felt tilted or off balance. Because of this, she kept her hold on Nacho’s hands. “Put your arms around me,” he told her and Jade looked up to his face quickly in confusion, meeting his eyes.

“What?” she asked quietly, suddenly realizing how close they were. They were practically standing toe to toe. In her confusion, Nacho gently took her hands and placed them around his neck himself.

“Hold onto me, okay?” he clarified and Jade suddenly understood, remembering that he was carrying her out.

“Oh, right,” she laced her fingers together behind his neck as he bent down slightly, his face inching closer to hers.

“You okay?” he clarified, his hands moving to the backs of her thighs. She nodded, her bottom lip caught in her teeth, and he easily hoisted her up. In reflex, she wrapped her legs around his waist. It felt too intimate and Jade was suddenly nervous. To hide her face in case there was any chance of her blushing, Jade rested her head next to her left arm, burying it into his shoulder. Nacho, with his hands still under her thighs, started for the bedroom door, walking Jade out of the house.

“Sorry if I’m heavy,” Jade apologized quietly, speaking into his shoulder.

“You’re fine. I could carry three of you no problem, don’t worry,” Nacho told her, slowly carrying her through the home.

“Show off,” Jade smiled, feeling her nerves subside, “I can’t make you prove that because there’s not three of me.”

“Guess you just have to take my word for it,” she heard Nacho laugh at her, before saying, “Help me with the front door.”

“Huh?” Jade lifted her head before looking behind herself, finding the closed front door. “Oh, okay,” she let her right hand drop from around Nacho’s neck, leaning back so she could reach the door handle before turning it. She nearly fell backward doing so and Nacho had to catch her with one of his hands. In reflex, her thighs tightened around his waist before she looked back to him.

“I said help me, not fall over,” he told her, replacing his hand under her thigh and readjusting her in his arms before stepping out the door.

“I’m sorry,” Jade giggled, “I thought you said you were fine carrying me.”

“I can carry you just fine. You’re the one falling over,” Nacho teased her, stepping through the door frame and turning around so Jade could close the door behind them. “Careful,” he told her as she did the same thing, but this time she kept a firm grip on his shoulder with her left hand.

“I got this,” Jade answered him smugly but when she leaned back up she noticed he was looking at a few of the party-goers on the front porch.

“Hey… Nacho,” Joel said first and Jade also noticed Jesse, Badger, Combo, and of course Corey.

“Oh hell,” she groaned, burying her face into Nacho’s shoulder, trying to disappear.

“‘Sup,” Nacho greeted him shortly.

“Who the hell—?” Badger started but Jade heard Jesse cut him off.

“Not right now, yo,” he stopped him quietly and Jade peeked over to see Jesse keeping Badger in his seat.

“Oh, okay,” Badger leaned back in his seat. On the ground next to him, Jade saw Corey through his hood over his head and reach for Jesse’s bong. “Bye, Jade,” Badger waved instead, oblivious to the suddenly awkward situation.

“Bye Badger,” she mumbled, waiving with her head still hidden. She heard the bong bubbling as Nacho walked them away from the porch.

“Kid looks like he needs that Adderall,” Nacho quietly told her, walking her off the porch and through the front lawn to where his van was parked.

“Does he?” Jade asked, lifting her head from his shoulder so she could look at him, but her eyes were inadvertently drawn to her friends, more specifically her most recent ex, on the porch with Jesse’s bong in his lap.

“Yeah. Thought Corey took off too?”

Jade looked back to him, trying to remember why he thought that. “Oh, um,” she started and Nacho stopped at the sidewalk near his parked van. “I thought so but I guess he stuck around? Lena told me that Taylor— her boyfriend— and Joel were trying to calm him down. So… I guess not?” Jade glanced back to them for a moment.

“You didn’t call me?” Nacho asked her and she wondered if he was standing there in plain view, with her in his arms, as punishment.

“I technically did call you. I didn’t find out he stayed until, like, after I called you. Like, just now,” Jade admitted and Nacho sighed.

“Where do you want me to put you? Front seat or the back with your friend?” he asked her and Jade looked behind herself to his van.

“Back,” she answered and Nacho stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street, heading for the back doors of his Chevy van. Without him asking this time, Jade reached behind her and pulled one of the doors open with her right hand, Nacho helping to get the heavy door open with his knee. He set her down on the edge of the van’s carpeted floor then, and Jade let her arms and legs fall away from him before scooting back so he could close the door. After, she moved next to Tammy, who was laying down in the back of Nacho’s van, seemingly passed out.

“Hey, Tam?” Jade asked and watched her friend’s brown eyes flutter open briefly. Jade sighed before laying on her side and using her right arm for a pillow so she could face Tammy.

“You both okay?” Nacho asked as he got into his driver seat.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Jade answered for them, knowing Tammy wouldn’t be able to.

“Keep her on her side. You too,” Nacho told her and Jade nodded, unsure if he saw as the engine to his van started up, rumbling loudly.

The ride to her house was short and silent. Laying on the floor of Nacho’s van gave her a feeling similar to floating, Jade imagined, except she could feel every bump on the roads of Albuquerque between Jesse’s place and her own. She didn’t feel sick and it wasn’t uncomfortable, it was just… different.

Jade didn’t realize they had arrived until she heard the van’s engine die off and she lifted her head off her right arm to see Nacho climb out of the driver’s seat. After a few seconds, she heard the back doors to the van open and moved her eyes to them, finding Nacho waiting for her with a hand outstretched.

“You still doing okay?” he asked and she accepted his hand to sit herself up.

“We’re good, yeah,” Jade responded, before scooting herself to the edge of the van’s floor again. She found that scooting forward while wearing a dress was a lot harder to do without it riding too high up her thighs.

“How do you want to do this?” Nacho asked her and Jade looked up to him from the hem of the dress, confused as she pulled the fabric down.

“What?” she asked him to clarify.

Nacho rose an eyebrow and asked, “Do you want me to get you in through your window? Can we just walk through the front door?”

“Um…” Jade thought on his questions but was still sober enough to realize that he probably couldn’t get Tammy through the window of her bedroom. “Front door. I think,” she answered with a sigh.

“Can you walk?” Nacho asked her, helping her out of the back of his van and keeping her steady on her feet with his hands on her shoulders.

“Yeah, I think I’m good,” Jade kept herself from nodding, knowing it would throw her off the delicate balance she had found with Nacho’s help.

“Go unlock the front door and let us in,” Nacho instructed, letting go of Jade’s shoulders and she agreed.

“Okay,” she turned around carefully and immediately almost fell over as she tripped on the curb.

“Please don’t fall,” Nacho stressed and she laughed.

“I’m good,” she gave him a thumbs-up, but Nacho still left the back of his van to take hold of her again.

“New plan,” he steered her off towards her bedroom window before he started working it open like she had seen him do before. “Give me your house keys,” he told her after her screen was off and he was shimmying the glass open.

Jade reached for her pockets before remembering she was in Lena’s dress, again. “Oh,” she said softly. Remembering that they wouldn’t even be with her jeans, she left her wallet and keys in her backpack in Jesse’s room.

“Oh?” Nacho asked her once her window was open and she looked back to him.

“I don’t have them… I mean I have them but not with me,” she admitted.

“You left them at Pinkman’s?” Nacho asked her and Jade couldn’t see past the look of disappointment on his face.

“Yeah— They’re safe though. I’ll get them later,” Jade reassured him, but he still looked dissatisfied.

“Can you unlock the front door?” he asked her after a moment, holding his hand out for her.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she reassured him, though she was using the side of her house for balance.

“Meet me at the front door, okay? I’ll bring your friend,” Nacho told her before lifting her up so she could awkwardly crawl through her bedroom window. “You okay?” he asked her when she finally found her footing and she turned around to answer, pulling the hem of her dress down.

“I’m good, I’ll meet you,” she stumbled back towards her door, trying to play it off like she was walking backward.

Nacho didn’t look convinced but still left her window to return to his van for Tammy. Jade turned and grabbed for her bedroom door handle then, slowly opening the door and peeking out into the hallway. Her parent’s door, as well as Charlie’s door and Elle’s door, were all closed and the house was silent, so Jade allowed herself to slip into the hall. She used the wall on her right for balance until she made it to the living room. From there she quickly walked to the door, leaning against it as she unlocked the deadbolt and knob.

When she opened the door, she found Nacho waiting on the other side, Tammy in his arms, just like he had told her. She struggled to open the door with herself in the way, but she was able to let Nacho into her home, watching him take in the well-used living room.

“Nobody’s awake yet,” she told him and his eyes fell back to her.

“Good. Your room, right?” he asked and she nodded, closing and locking the front door again.

“Yeah,” she turned around, pointing to the hallway. “I’m on the end, open door,” she whispered. Without a word, Nacho walked quietly down the hallway first, heading for Jade’s room. She followed, again using the walls in the hallway to keep herself upright. By the time she got into her room herself, Nacho had laid Tammy on the bed and was working on getting her converse sneakers off her feet.

“I’m figuring you want her on the bed right?” Nacho asked and Jade nodded, forgetting that the world would spin each time she did and had to lean her back against her bedroom door.

“You okay?” Nacho noticed after getting both of the sneakers off of Tammy’s feet.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jade reassured him but stayed in her spot, trying to focus her eyes and watch him move her messy bed covers aside before picking Tammy up and placing her on her left side so she was on the edge of the mattress closest to the wall.

“C’mon,” he waved her over next but Jade lost her smile.

“I’m not tired,” she told him, trying to sound serious.

“When did you take those pills?” he asked her, still holding his hand out for her and Jade relented, reaching for his hand before leaving the security of her door.

“Like five hours ago,” Jade admitted and he sat her on the edge of her mattress in front of him.

“You’ll come down soon. Are you, uh,” Nacho took a step back from her rubbing the back of his neck. “Are you sleeping in that?” Silently, Jade pointed at her dresser behind Nacho and he turned. “What? Which drawer?” he turned back to ask.

“Middle,” Jade kept pointing and her dresser and Nacho forced the drawer open.

“You know how to fold clothes, right?” he looked back to her and Jade’s mouth fell open.

“Oh my god, you’re judging me again,” Jade realized, trying not to laugh.

“Yeah. Are these even clean? They’re just thrown in here,” he pointed at all of her band shirts, haphazardly strewn about inside the drawer.

“Yes, they’re clean,” Jade couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “They’d be in the corner if they weren’t,” Jade pointed to the opposite corner of her room where there was a pile of clothes that she had neglected to wash for the past week or two.

Nacho sighed, looking from the pile of dirty clothes to her on the bed. “What do you want?” he asked, pointing to the open drawer of tee-shirts.

“Any of them,” Jade kept her smile and he grabbed out the first shirt on the top of the pile in the drawer, before forcing it closed and handing the shirt to her. “Good choice,” she told him, realizing it was one of her older Nirvana shirts, the one with the album art of In Utero. She threw it over her head pulling the bottom of the shirt down, and before she slipped her arms through the holes. After, she shoved off the straps to her bra and Lena’s dress. It was an old trick for undressing without undressing that she had learned in the locker rooms at high school.

“Yeah,” Nacho didn’t seem convinced at what she considered to be a “good choice.” He crossed his arms, suddenly serious again and said, “Lay down with your back against hers so neither of you roll over, alright?”

“We’re fine, Nacho,” Jade insisted, forcing her dress and bra off from under her shirt before tossing them into the corner with her other dirty clothes. She still did as he asked after, moving to lay with her back against Tammy’s, and then pulled her comforter over them both.

“Text me when you wake up,” Jade watched him pull her phone out of his jacket’s pocket, setting it next to her alarm clock on her nightstand. After, he stepped back towards her window.

“Okay,” she told him, readjusting her position until she was comfortable, though she still felt cramped in her small twin bed with Tammy behind her. “What are you gonna do?” she asked as he moved to climb out her window.

“I have work in about an hour,” he laughed at her.

“Work?” she asked him, wondering what he could be doing so early in the morning. She checked her clock and realized it was just about six in the morning. “My parents wake up as six, you better go,” she looked back to him quickly.

“Already gone,” he smiled at her before slipping out her window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. There's one Spanish word in this, Bueno. Typically means good but its also used as a greeting.
> 
> We're a week away from Better Call Saul Season 5! Holy shit it's finally here 😁
> 
> On a side note, I ended up posting that Nacho POV scene I said I wrote. It's titled Hard toBe a God, and its posted in the same series as this story so check it out of you haven't already. I've got another one written, and a couple more in the works, so I'll see about updating that again next week around the time Season 5 premiers. And then I have the next chapter ready for the 29th/1st. Also, I edited the tags for this. They're pretty much the same as before just... better? Maybe not better but I like them more.
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for reading, and double thanks to those who've commented. It makes my day reading the comments you leave. Also thanks to the BF for beta reading this beast.


	12. Dissolved Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Jesse's party, Jade gets roped into quickly worsening situations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Massive Attack's song "Dissolved Girl" .
> 
> Grammarly estimates this chapter will take about 40 minutes to read. Also, this chapter is just over 22 novel pages. This whole story so far is sitting at like 211 pages so... that's crazy.
> 
> As with the previous chapters, this chapter takes place after the events of season one of Better Call Saul, so potential spoilers are ahead for that season.
> 
> All Spanish used in the last scene is translated in the notes below. As far as content warnings, well... According to Google's definition and a Merriam-Webster dictionary, the last scene contains gore.

Apparently, she was tired. Jade didn’t even remember falling asleep after Nacho had left, and was surprised to find herself waking up from her cell phone ringing on her nightstand. For a moment, Jade thought about ignoring it, but she felt a shift behind her and remembered Tammy was in bed with her.

“What’s that?” Tammy sighed quietly behind Jade, and that prompted Jade to reach out and check her phone. The small front screen read, “Incoming call: Lenabean.”

“It’s Lena,” Jade stared at the phone for another moment before deciding to answer her call.

“‘Lo?” Jade cleared her throat.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Lena asked on the other end, sounding concerned.

“Huh?” Jade asked, feeling Tammy turn around behind her. “Yeah, why?”

“Because you just fucking disappeared!” Lena exhaled sharply. “And Tams is with you? Jesse said some shady guy picked you both up?”

“Shady?” Jade questioned. “He’s not shady. He’s maybe, like,” she giggled before continuing, “he’s dark and handsome. Not shady.”

“Tell her he’s very nice,” Tammy added, and Jade figured she was close enough now to be able to hear Lena on the other end.

“Tammy says he’s nice,” Jade added in.

“She’s with you right now?” Lena clarified.

“Yeah.”

“Hi Lena,” Tammy spoke up, hoping Lena could hear her.

“So, you’re both okay then?” Lena asked.

“Yeah, we’re good. We’re back at my place, sleeping,” Jade answered with a yawn.

“So if I invite you both to breakfast then, you’d say no?”

“Breakfast?”

“Oh God, I’m starving,” Tammy whined behind her, and any of Jade’s hopes of being able to sleep later were dashed.

“Breakfast with who?” Jade asked, turning onto her back so she could look at Tammy.

“Just a couple of us, me and Taylor,” Lena started. “Joel, Jesse, Badger… Corey and Combo,” she added at the end quickly, and Jade rolled her eyes.

“That’s a horrible idea, Lena,” Jade stated, and immediately Tammy pouted.

“But why?” she asked, and Jade didn’t get a chance to respond as Lena was already answering her.

“It’s not horrible. The guys will behave, okay?”

“After last night, I shouldn’t talk to Corey for, like, a month,” Jade sighed.

“He’s okay, he’s really calm about that and Combo now,” Lena explained, and Jade’s eyebrows furrowed.

“The hell would he be mad about Combo for? I dated him sophomore year,” Jade asked her.

“You… nothing, never mind.”

“Lena, what?”

“You made out with him last night,” Lena finally said, and Jade groaned.

“Are you kidding me? Why?” she ran a hand down her face before meeting Tammy’s confused gaze. “I made out with Combo,” she mouthed, and Tammy pouted again.

“Oh.”

“I don’t even remember him showing up,” Jade sighed into her phone. “God, I’m missing so much of last night, I think.”

“Yeah, the vodka kind of fucked us both up,” Lena sighed, meaning to agree with Jade, but that only made her sit up in bed.

“Since when was there vodka?”

“Someone brought one of those huge bottles of Absolut, and we all kind of murdered it,” Lena told Jade, who was surprised that she was as coherent as she was. Jade looked to the clock and saw it was just about noon, before thanking the fact that she was young and not overly prone to hangovers. “So, are you down or…?”

“Lena, this is a horrible idea,” Jade told her and Tammy sat up next to Jade, still pouting. “Tammy’s totally down to see Jesse again, though.”

“Shut up,” she chuckled, and Jade smiled at her.

“They’ll behave!” Lena reiterated, “I promise they’ll behave.”

“Doesn’t matter, its a terrible idea regardless,” Jade refused.

“They’ll behave, it’ll be fine, here,” Lena started before someone else came on the line, and Jade repressed the urge to immediately hang up.

“It’ll be cool, if you uh, come to breakfast with us,” Corey’s voice came over the line, and Jade remained silent, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. “I won’t cause shit,” he added in her silence. “Jade?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll go,” Jade finally agreed, though her brain was still nagging her that it was a terrible idea. That, and she had also promised Nacho that she’d text him when she woke up, but now there was no way she could do that.

“Cool,” he responded shortly, sounding about as enthused as she was before Lena came back on the line.

“See?” she asked Jade. “Do you need me to make Combo promise he’ll behave, too?”

“No, it’s fine. Where are we having breakfast?” Jade asked, looking to Tammy’s excited smile.

“IHOP. We were thinking the one on Ouray, close to Jesse’s.”

“You’re all still at Jesse’s?” Jade asked.

“Yeah. Think you can catch a bus or something?”

“Yeah, just give us a bit to look less like walking corpses, and we’ll head over,” Jade agreed.

“Okay, perfect Thank you,” Jade could tell Lena was smiling. “See you babes soon.”

“Bye, Lena,” Jade kept from sighing until she had ended the call.

“This is a terrible idea,” Jade told Tammy.

“We’ll be fine,” Tammy tried reassuring her before crawling out of Jade’s twin bed and stretching, before scratching at her head.

“Can I borrow, like, everything? I didn’t think I’d be out all night.”

“Yeah, go for it. I think your Korn shirt is still on top of my dresser?” Jade pointed it out, and Tammy nodded before stepping over and grabbing it.

“I should give Jesse back his shirt, huh?” Tammy asked, and Jade agreed with her.

“Yeah. I’ll get Lena her dress back too.”

~-----~

An hour later, Tammy and Jade were stepping off the bus near the IHOP, where they agreed to meet their friends. Tammy was back in her Korn band shirt and the last clean pair of Jade’s tight-fitting jeans (though they were still loose on her). Jade was left with baggy “Meth-dealing” jeans or the jean shorts she wore a couple of days ago. She chose the shorts along with one of her older, plain black teeshirts. It was so old and over-worn that small holes were forming in it, and the fabric was about as thin as tissue paper. It was also the softest shirt she owned, so Jade kept it around.

Before they left Jade’s house, neither girl actually showered. They did clean up some, enough to look like living humans instead of walking corpses, as Jade had jokingly called them. Jade shared her deodorant and makeup with Tammy. On the bus, they both braided each other’s hair. Tammy braided Jade’s long hair into a French braid. Tammy’s was too short, however, so Jade had done French braid pigtails instead. It was enough at least to hide the fact that either girl hadn’t washed their hair in the past three or four days.

When they stepped off the city bus, Jade was surprised to see only Jesse and Lena waiting outside the IHOP restaurant, versus everyone who was supposed to come. The hopeful thought crossed Jade’s mind that Corey and Combo and the others had decided not to go to breakfast after all. She figured it was more likely that they were already seated inside instead. Tammy and Jade did have a longer bus ride than they did, after all.

“Do I look okay?” Jade heard Tammy whisper, and she looked away from her two friends across the parking lot to look Tammy over once.

“Yeah, you look great,” Jade smiled at her. “You literally spent all night with Jesse, don’t stress.”

“I’m wearing my Korn shirt,” Tammy whispered back while crossing her arms like she was trying to hide that fact.

“I’m literally wearing a shirt filled with holes,” Jade countered. “You got past the hard part last night, Tams. He likes you, you’re good,” Jade kept reassuring her friend while they crossed the parking lot towards Jesse and Lena.

“Hey, babes!” Lena greeted them as they got closer, ending the short conversation Jade and Tammy were having.

“Hey,” Jade smiled back, glad to see that Jesse was holding onto her backpack. “Brought you something,” Jade told Lena, before slinging the gray dress off of her shoulder and handing it over. 

“Oh thank Jesus,” Lena’s shoulders literally fell in relief, as she was still wearing Jade’s Nine Inch Nails shirt and Jesse’s Mom’s teal, stretchy, mom pants. “We also found your jeans, but there was like beer spilled on them?”

“There was beer spilled on my jeans?” Jade laughed.

“Yeah. It’s like someone cleaned a beer spill with them,” Jesse spoke up, before handing Jade her backpack. “I’m washing them with Tammy’s shirt.”

“Technically Badger is washing them,” Lena pointed out, slinging her dress over her own shoulder.

“Yeah, I don’t know how washing machines work,” Jesse laughed at himself, while Tammy quietly handed him the plain teeshirt he had let her borrow.

“Well, thanks for not handing us back puke and beer clothes,” Jade laughed as well, her hands falling leisurely on her waist after pulling the straps of her backpack on.

“Yeah, no prob babes. I’ ma get changed out of these old woman pants, though. Jesse, can you show them where we’re all sitting?”

“Yeah, cool,” Jesse nodded as she quickly headed inside the restaurant. “So, Korn, huh?” Jesse looked away from Lena as she walked into the entrance if the IHOP.

“Uh, yeah,” Tammy answered quietly from Jade’s side, and she felt like smacking her head. Of course he’d immediately point out the thing she felt most insecure about.

“Sweetness. I love Korn too,” he held his arm out towards Tammy, and Jade briefly thought she’d have to push her friend over to him, but she stepped into Jesse’s side on her own with his arm falling around her shoulders.

“You do?” Jade asked him, an eyebrow raised as she began following the new couple into the restaurant.

“Yeah, man. That new song Thoughtless is my jam,” Jesse smiled at her.

“Yeah, Thoughtless is good,” Tammy quietly agreed, settling her left arm around Jesse’s waist. “The whole new album, really.” She glanced back at Jade, who was following them in, and Jade gave her a confident, “I told you so,” smile.

Jesse led them both through the restaurant. It was mostly filled with elderly people and retirees, and single adults most likely on their lunch breaks. It was past noon, Jade figured, so this must be typical. The table with all her friends was tough to miss. It was by far the loudest, even with just five people sitting at it currently, Taylor, Joel, Corey, Badger, and Combo.

“Look who I found, bitches,” Jesse laughed as they got closer, and Jade inwardly groaned. At least the staff at IHOP had enough sense to stick them all in a corner, away from the other customers.

“They’re alive!” Taylor laughed.

“‘Sup girlies?” Badger added in, “Glad to see you made it back to us.”

“Yeah. Apparently, you both left in a stalker van?” Taylor asked, and Jade immediately frowned at him.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“It was a stalker van?” Tammy asked. “I don’t remember it being a stalker van?” she looked to Jade with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s not—”

“Yeah, it’s pretty much a beat-up, old, stalker van,” Corey reassured Tammy, and Jade turned her frown to him. She shouldn’t have done this, why had she agreed to come?

“How about can we not?” Jade asked quickly, looking from Corey to Taylor then to Badger.

“Ignore the idiots, we’re just glad to see you’re both okay,” Joel chimed in, while Badger and Combo scooted out of the booth to let Tammy and Jesse in. On the opposite side of the rounded table, Taylor stood up, and Jade figured she and Lena would be sitting between him and Joel. She sat on the bench and scooted over next to him, placing her backpack on her lap.

“Totally. Lena freaked when she couldn’t find you two,” Taylor sat back at the end of the booth on Jade’s right.

“We just went to crash at my place for a bit. I mean, you literally saw who we left with and everything,” Jade glanced at Corey around Joel.

“The scary dude with the stalker van? Yeah,” Jesse nodded.

“He’s not scary,” Tammy disagreed, and Jade gave her a quick “Thank you!”. “He’s really nice.”

“That seems to be a thing with him. He’s nice to chicks,” Corey added in before taking a drink from his soda. Everyone but Jade and Tammy already had drinks, and she wondered if they had also ordered food without them. She stayed silent, regardless, and it seemed to finally help the issue drop since Tammy followed her lead, and Corey didn’t add anything more.

“Oh my god, that bathroom smells like old lady,” Lena broke the thickening silence as she arrived back at the table. “I swear, I don’t know if it’s like a secret cult perfume, or if it’s just how old lady skin smells or what… Oh my god, are you guys being assholes already?” Lena seemed to notice the silence she had broken.

“Nope.”

“No, not at all.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Just talking, babe.”

Several of the guys chimed in at once, but Lena didn’t seem to be buying it.

“Whatever. Jade, your shirt,” Lena handed the shirt to her as Taylor got up again from his seat. “And Jesse, your mom’s pants.” She tossed the teal pants at him from across the table as she sat down, scooting in close next to Jade so Taylor would still have room at the end of the bench.

“Uh, thanks,” Jesse half caught them with his hands, half with his face, before stuffing them between himself and Combo on his left. Combo rose an eyebrow at him before looking to Lena.

“Why were you wearing Jade’s shirt and Jesse’s mom’s pants?”

“You thought I’d own those pants?” Lena laughed at him. “We played truth or dare before you decided to grace us with your presence last night, Christian,” Lena stated, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Can we not talk about truth or dare, please?” Corey asked quickly, and Jade silently nodded.

“Yeah, let’s never mention that game again?” Jesse suggested, giving Combo a look that silently told him to shut up. Jade figured he probably thought what had happened was his fault, but he couldn’t know. It was her and her stupid ass that had admitted what she had.

“Whatever. Can’t have been worse than what happened after that Absolut came out,” he shrugged before looking back to Jade, who quickly flipped him off. She didn’t remember last night when the Absolut had come out, but from what Lena had told her, she knew that he was referencing them making out.

Combo smiled at Jade’s disdain, but neither had a moment to say anything more as the waitress came up to the table, and Jade withdrew the finger on her hand.

“We found the last two people?” she asked with a smile, looking around at the teenagers sat at her table.

“We totally did, they finally showed up,” Lena smiled at her.

“Do you know what drinks and food you two want yet?” the waitress glanced between Tammy under Jesse’s arm and Jade sandwiched between Joel and Lena. It confirmed Jade’s suspicions that the group had already ordered food.

“Uh, coffee?” Tammy asked, and before the waitress could write that down, Jade timed in.

“Like, fancy coffee? Like a mocha, with chocolate and tons of whipped cream?” she asked, though she hadn’t even looked at the menu.

“Yes, same,” Tammy quickly agreed.

“Alright, two mochas with extra whip. And for food?” The waitress asked.

“Pancakes. Like, just a stack of pancakes with extra butter,” Tammy told the waitress who nodded as she kept writing, making her wispy bangs bounce slightly. “And for you?” she looked up to Jade.

“Uh, whatever he got?” Jade pointed to Corey around Joel.

“Two eggs over easy, hash browns, extra bacon, and white toast?” the waitress quickly remembered Corey’s order, and Jade nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds amazing. Thanks,” Jade smiled at the waitress as she left them to put the order in.

Despite the initial bumpy start, breakfast with her friends and two of her exes (three, Jade reminded herself quickly), wasn’t all that bad. She was about halfway through her mocha, and the waitress had just brought out everyone’s food when Jade’s phone started going off. She had previously pulled it out of her pocket and sat on the table next to her plate.

Jade looked down at her phone that was vibrating on the table next to her plate. Her stomach sank; the small front screen on her flip phone read “Incoming Call From: Cheesy Chips.” Lena, on Jade’s right, looked down as well but said nothing as she decided to let it just ring. Her blue eyes looked back to her breakfast, and she kept them there. Jade felt guilty about having not even text Nacho a “thanks for saving me last night, just wanted to let you know I’m still alive” when she and Tammy had woken up. After his call went to voice mail, she got a text from him.

“Who’s blowing up your phone, Jade?” Combo asked from the other side of the table.

“Dude, shut up,” Jade rolled her eyes, looking up at him from her half-eaten bacon. “I got one call and one text. My phone’s not blowing up.” As she finished saying that, she received a second text from Nacho, and Combo simply rose his eyebrow at her.

“Sounds like it’s blowing up.”

“Whatever,” she sighed, quickly flipping her phone open to read the two texts from Nacho.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Are you doing ok?  
Text: 2/2  
Call me when youre up.

Before she could even realize it and stop herself, she was smiling.

“Wow,” Combo commented, making Jade realize what she had done.

“Christian, stop,” Lena scolded him next since he wasn’t entirely adhering to her rule of behaving.

“When’s the last time she’s ever smiled like that, c’mon,” he pointed out.

“She smiles all the time!”

“Just because I’m a cold-hearted bitch towards you, Combo, doesn’t mean I hate everyone,” Jade agreed.

“It’s just you, man,” Badger nudged him. “She was fine yesterday too.”

“She smiles at literally everyone but you,” Tammy agreed, looking at Combo in between bites of her quickly disappearing pancakes. To prove her friend’s point, Jade gave Tammy a toothy smile, which was promptly returned.

“Fine, fine. I get it,” Combo threw his hands up before cutting another bite off his omelet with his fork.

Jade thought that would be the end of the short conversation until Corey spoke up a moment after.

“So… what’s Nacho want?” Corey asked nonchalantly while pushing bits of egg around his plate. From her seat, Jade side-eyed him from the other side of Joel. There was no way he could have seen her phone, so he was just guessing. Jade thought about telling him it was someone else. Instead, she went for a less graceful approach.

“He probably wants to make sure Tams and I didn’t choke or seize after he dropped us off at my place,” she didn’t even look at her ex and instead focused on eating her bacon.

“That’s the scary guy that picked you up last night from Jesse’s?” Combo clarified, bringing back up the short and uncomfortable conversation from when Tammy and Jade had arrived. This time, instead of frowning at him, Jade turned and pouted at Lena. She blamed her friend for talking her into this in the first place.

“Wait, that’s the same guy?” Badger asked from the other end of the booth. “That scary guy was the weed guy?”

“Oh shit, that was him? Your boss is Nacho?” Jesse seemed to realize the same thing Badger had.

“I literally greeted him with ‘hey Nacho’ when he left your house with Jade,” Joel spoke up. At the same time, Corey, on the other side of him, started rubbing his eyes like this all was giving him a migraine.

“I totally don’t remember that,” Jesse stated.

“Do you remember most of last night?” Joel asked him, prompting a proud smile form Jesse.

“I remember the important bits,” he stated before directing his smile at Tammy, who was suddenly blushing.

“Hey, at least the party didn’t suck for everyone,” Combo laughed.

“It had its hiccups, but it was pretty good,” Lena agreed.

“Pretty good?” Taylor questioned her with a pout.

“Shut up,” Lena laughed, and Jade figured they had ended up doing the same thing Jesse and Tammy had since they were MIA when Nacho had come to pick Jade up.

Jade, thinking that the call and two texts from Nacho would be forgotten quickly, was once again proven wrong, this time by Tammy.

“You aren’t gonna tell him we’re okay, though?” she asked Jade, leaning forward slightly to get a better view around Corey and Joel.

“I told him I’d text when we were awake,” Jade made sure not to look at Corey as she answered Tammy. “But I kind of didn’t do that, and I don’t want him to get mad.”

“So, this scary weed nachos guy is like your new boyfriend?” Combo asked before Tammy even had a chance to respond, and Jade quickly shot him a glare.

“Combo, shut up,” she scolded him, along with Lena.

“Christian, are you serious? Shut it!”

“Really, dude?” Jesse asked him as well.

“Yeah, no. They’re practically dating,” Corey told him after, and Jade’s glare was turned towards him.

“Are you serious right now? I’m not ‘dating’ him, we’re friends,” Jade quickly explained, “He doesn’t even date, and I don’t even like—”

“So, wait, you’ve actually had this conversation with him? That he doesn’t date?” Corey quickly cut her off before humorlessly laughing. “Oh my god, you’re seriously into him, then?”

“I don’t like Nacho,” Jade flat out lied, but was able to sound angry enough that it sounded truthful. Or possibly, she only came off as defensive and, therefore, guilty.

“Really, ’cause he’ seems to really like you,” Corey shot back at her quickly.

“Can we just not do this right now?” Jade asked him, with Joel stuck between them both like a reluctant wall.

“Babes, please chill?” Lena asked them both, and Jade placed her forehead in her hands, with her elbows on the table.

“Yeah, we’re chill. We’re good,” Corey lost the edge to his voice and quickly shoved a heaping bite of hash browns and ketchup into his mouth.

“Yeah, we’re all just chillin’. We’re all cool,” Taylor agreed, looking around the otherwise uncomfortably silent table.

Next to Jade, she felt Lena lean towards her before whispering, “At least text him back, so he knows you’re okay if he was worried.”

Jade didn’t say anything to her but figured it would be the right thing to do. Nacho did seem to have a weird fear of people choking on their own vomit in their sleep. She glanced quickly at Corey, who was still shoveling hash browns into his mouth. At the same time, Badger tired breaking the silence with talk about Star Trek that Taylor, Combo, and Jesse quickly jumped in on.

Jade slid her phone off of the table and held it between herself and her backpack so she could quickly respond to Nacho.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
yea were ok :)

She closed her phone silently before slipping it back onto the table and reached for her mocha. Not even thirty seconds later, her phone was vibrating next to her plate. The front screen read “Incoming Call From: Cheesy Chips.” She stared at it for a moment, the table falling briefly silent while the phone vibrated, and Jade decided to just bite the bullet and answer it.

“Hey, Nacho,” she said quickly and quietly.

“Hey, you feeling better?” he asked, and Jade fought the smile her lips tried to form.

“Yeah, I’m good— we’re good, I mean. Both of us,” Jade corrected her words. 

“Your friend was pretty out of it,” Nacho stated.

“Yeah, it was her first time partying,” Jade added, lowering her voice even further.

“She still passed out?” Nacho questioned, obviously, due to how quiet she was being.

“Uh… no,” Jade reluctantly answered.

“Why are you so quiet?” Nacho questioned, and Jade glanced around the table, realizing people were either quietly waiting for her phone conversation to finish or purposely trying to ignore it.

“Because, um… I’m at breakfast with my friends,” Jade finally admitted, her voice just above a whisper.

“With your friends from last night?” Nacho questioned her. Instead of sounding upset, he seemed… amused? 

“Yeah.”

“Including Corey?” he probed.

“Uh, yeah,” Jade quickly glanced at her ex, who was currently ignoring her.

To her surprise and irritation, Nacho laughed at her. “I can’t imagine how awkward that is.”

“Gee, thanks. Your sympathy is noted,” Jade told him sarcastically, dropping her quiet tone.

“Can you not piss Nacho off, please?” Joel asked her quietly, and Jade shot him a look of annoyance.

“He takes it out on us when you do,” Corey added, speaking towards his half-finished breakfast.

“No, he doesn’t—” Jade started to argue.

“Hey, whoa, are you pissing off weed guy?” Jesse cut Jade off, quickly drawn out of the conversation he, Badger, Combo, and Taylor were trying to have.

“He’s not weed guy—”

“Babe, don’t piss off weed guy,” Lena quickly told her, cutting her off again.

“Nacho, hold on,” Jade spoke into her cell phone quickly before shoving at Lena. “Move, I can’t talk to him with you guys like this,” Jade stated.

“Okay, fine,” Taylor quickly moved out of his seat so his girlfriend could follow. “Just don’t piss off the weed guy,” he added as Jade got out of her neat next, scooting around the table.

“He’s not the weed guy, shut up,” Jade stressed before quickly walking away from the table and towards the restrooms.

“Sorry about that,” Jade held her phone back up to her ear as she walked.

“What happened?” Nacho asked her.

“Nothing. Corey and Joel are just idiots,” Jade told him as she pushed the bathroom door open.

“That’s new?” Nacho asked her, and Jade tried not to laugh.

“Don’t be mean. Anyway, what’s up?” Jade asked him, leaning against the bathroom counter and inspecting her eye makeup briefly in the mirror.

“Not much. Wanted to make sure you were okay, and I was gonna try to bribe you with tacos and dancing lessons, but you’re already eating,” Nacho stated, and Jade could imagine him shrugging.

“It’s Tuesday, huh?” Jade asked, trying to stop herself before she sighed. She hadn’t been to the past couple drops with Tuco and Nacho and figured it was about time she dealt with one again.

“Tuco was asking about you last night after that stunt you pulled,” Nacho informed her.

“What’ stunt’?” Jade asked him, but already figured it was about the text she had sent everyone and their mom. “‘Cause I text everyone?”

“Like I said, I’m glad you don’t have Tuco’s number,” Nacho told her, confirming her suspicions.

“So…” Jade started, looking around the empty bathroom and wrinkling her nose when she realized that it did, in fact, smell like old ladies. “What do I get out of it?”

“Out of what?”

“Going to drops with you today. Why would I do that instead of keep partying with my friends?” Jade asked him, wondering if she should just go outside instead of talk on the phone in the bathroom. The smell was getting worse.

“You mean besides sobriety and common sense?” Nacho shot back, and Jade smiled despite the smell. She decided outside would be better and left the bathroom. “What do you want?”

“Wait, we’re actually bargaining?” Jade asked him. “Five thousand.”

“Five thousand what?” Nacho laughed at her now. “Don’t say dollars because you’d be coming to drops for the next decade.”

“I just needed to gauge how much you were willing to bargain with,” Jade explained, keeping her smile. “So how about the next week off from dealing?”

“Really? You had Saturday off, and then Monday, and now today.” He still didn’t sound annoyed, so Jade wondered if she could push her limits. “I want the rest of the week, through next Tuesday—Wednesday. So I’m off ’til Thursday.”

“How ’bout no?”

“What if I go to drops next Tuesday, also?” Jade asked, walking out of the Ihop before she started slowly pacing around the sidewalk surrounding the building.

“So, you’ll come to drops today and next Tuesday, but you’ll be off the streets until next Thursday?” Nacho reiterated her offer.

“Yep.”

“How about you deal this Friday and the weekend. The rest of the days you can have off,” he offered instead.

“If I don’t have to go next Tuesday,” Jade continued trying to bargain.

“So next Tuesday’s off the table all the sudden?” Nacho asked, “I don’t think you know how bargaining works.” She was going to respond with some quick remark about Nacho just being hard-headed, but a sight in one of the restaurant’s windows made her burst out laughing. “And that’s funny how?”

“No, not you,” Jade sucked in a quick breath before flipping off Taylor, who had lifted his shirt up and pressed his bare chest into the glass. “My friends are morons, sorry,” Jade explained quickly, watching Lena wrangle her boyfriend back into his seat before turning to Jade through the window herself. She brought her index finger and thumb to her lips, mimicking smoking a joint, and Jade quickly shook her head. Lena shrugged as if asking, “why not?” but Jade only shook her head again.

“That’s you saying it, not me.”

“Shut up, Nacho,” she told him jokingly. “Anyway, final offer. I’ll deal Friday, Saturday, and Sunday if I go to drops today.”

“Sure, you aren’t going to try and bargain for more?”

“Can I get more?” Jade asked him, still facing her friends through the window. Corey, in particular, caught her attention, and she felt a sudden pang of sympathy for him. She felt guilty for ruining his night last night, on top of the way she had broken up with him.

“No, you can’t—”

“Actually,” Jade stopped him. “Give my days off to Corey.”

“What?” Nacho sounded genuinely surprised.

“I’ll go today and next Tuesday to drops, and Corey gets all those days off I asked for,” Jade added in, figuring it wouldn’t make a difference which one of them was off.

“Why?” Nacho questioned her shortly.

“He needs it more,” she explained as briefly as possible, finally turning away from the window.

“You sure?” Nacho asked her. “You’ll do drops with me today and next week, and Corey’s off beside the weekend and Friday?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Jade nodded though she knew Nacho couldn’t see.

“Where are you? Assuming you can’t get to El Michoacáno on your own.”

“You know that IHOP on Ouray? Near I-45?” Jade explained briefly.

“Yeah, I know it. Give me half an hour,” Nacho told her, but Jade stopped him before he could hang up.

“Also, uh, Nacho?”

“Yeah?”

“Um…” Jade kicked at the concrete below her sneakers. “Thanks for coming to get me last night— I mean this morning,” she felt suddenly nervous. “Tammy, too, I mean. You picked us both up.”

“I told you I would,” he told her with a stern yet soft tone.

“I, um…” Jade realized her butterflies had found their way back into her stomach, fluttering around her half-eaten breakfast. “So, yeah, thanks.”

She heard him breathe in, before briefly pausing and saying, “I’ll see you in half an hour,” as if he had suddenly changed his mind on what he wanted to tell her.

“Uh, cool. See ya,” Jade brought the phone away from her face and pressed the call end button with her thumb.

~-----~

“You have to twist your hips when you step,” Tuco pointed out. Yet again, he was teaching her how to dance while they were waiting for the restaurant owner to finish cooking them up some tacos. Meanwhile, Nacho was able to get the street dealers in and out of the restaurant quickly. The three of them had probably been there for two hours with Nacho methodically counting cash while Jade distracted Tuco.

Despite her big breakfast and telling Tuco as much, he still eventually insisted that she eat.

“Twist my hips?” Jade stepped back as she asked before looking down at her hips. “What like a hula-hoop?”

“No, like… Like a washing machine,” Tuco explained, pointing at her hips as if she would suddenly understand. Instead, Jade pictured one of the front-load machines like at a laundromat and felt even more lost.

“Like a washing machine?” Jade clarified, with her hands on her hips and one of her eyebrows raised.

“He means as if you had a tail,” Nacho stated, still focusing on the cash in his hand. He had just finished counting what the dealer in front of him had given up.

“If I had a tail?” Jade asked before understanding, and she tried to stop herself from laughing as she looked back to Tuco. “You mean shake my ass?”

“No,” he laughed back at her, “shake your hips. I’m not teaching you how to strip, nena.” He had taken to calling her that, though she didn’t know what it meant and always forgot to ask Nacho.

Tuco, where he was standing, physically showed Jade what he meant. She understood then why he had said “washing machine,” thinking now of the back and forth oscillation of top load washing machines. “I don’t think I can move like that,” she tried telling him seriously but couldn’t stop herself from laughing. It was definitely odd seeing a man move like that.

“Ella se esta riendo de mi,” Tuco laughed as well while looking to Nacho and the street dealer who were now watching them. “C’mon,” Tuco looked back to her. “Every chavala can move like this,” he told her, putting her hands on her hips once again. In response, Jade moved hers around his neck. Shortly after arriving, she had used one of the rubber bands to tie her black shirt up just above the waistband of her shorts but had been regretting that decision since starting to dance with Tuco. The movements, combined with her lifting her arms, always left her midriff exposed for Tuco’s fingers.

“You’re good, you can go,” Jade heard Nacho dismiss the street dealer after she and Tuco started moving. Jade glanced over as the dealer got out of his seat.

“Cool. Later Nacho,” he said, and Nacho nodded once at him. “Jade, Tuco,” he added, throwing them his index and middle fingers before heading for the restaurant’s door.

“Bye,” Jade bid him before turning back to Tuco. If he hadn’t kept guiding her, she probably would have lost time with their dance.

“¿Crees que a ella le gustan más los chingados que a nosotros?” Tuco asked, and she looked up to him before realizing he was addressing Nacho.

“What?” he responded quickly in English, pausing halfway through wrapping a rubber band around the roll of cash he had counted.

“Huh?” Jade turned back to Tuco, her eyebrows furrowed at what he could have asked to catch Nacho so off guard.

“Nada, nena,” Tuco smiled back at her.

“Ella está aquí con nosotros, no por ahí con ellos,” Nacho said as he tossed the money into the duffel bag at his feet.

“Seguro,” Tuco laughed, keeping his focus on Nacho rather than Jade. “La estás mirando, ese. ¿Quieres un turno?”

“Sabes que no me gusta bailar,” Nacho responded, crossing his arms and leaning back slightly in his chair.

“What’s ‘bailar’?” Jade interrupted their conversation. She wasn’t going to understand anything if she didn’t start memorizing words, and she had heard that word several times before from Tuco. She looked over at Nacho, who kept his mouth shut, before looking back up at Tuco.

“Dancing,” he told her. Jade immediately smiled, stepping away from Tuco before she turned back to Nacho.

“Do you wanna dance?” she asked him.

“Hell no,” Nacho responded, but still returned the smile Jade was giving him.

“Why not?” Jade’s hands went to her hips, and she glanced back at Tuco briefly.

“Don’t like it,” Nacho shrugged, his arms still crossed.

“Sure, he don’t,” Tuco told her before the owner of the restaurant called him over.

“Señor Tuco, los tacos para la dama,” he said over the music and the sizzling of the grill.

“What’s that mean?” Jade asked Tuco as he started for the back of the restaurant.

“Means he was dancing last night,” he told her. Jade knew what he meant. Nacho must have been dancing at the strip club.

“Not recreational my ass,” Jade lowered her voice, teasing Nacho as she made her way to the table that she had left her soda on. She tried not to feel jealous over the fact that Nacho would dance with a stripper but not with her.

“If I’m forced to be somewhere, it’s not recreational,” Nacho responded in a similarly quiet tone, watching her walk to the table.

“Not like you didn’t wanna be there. What guy doesn’t wanna go to a strip club?” Jade asked him, sitting down and crossing her legs, sitting sideways in her chair. Jade took a sip of her tamarind soda after the only response Nacho gave was a smirk.

“Thanks, Tuco,” she said, pulling the glass bottle away from her lips as Tuco returned from the back of the restaurant, but with only one plate of tacos. She turned in her chair to face her plate as Tuco sat across from her, like always. She decided not to question why he wasn’t eating and immediately picked up one of the two tacos, despite having breakfast only a couple hours ago. Her silent question was answered when Tuco opted for taking a baggie out of his breast pocket instead.

Behind Jade, she heard the restaurant’s doorbell ring as someone new entered, and she didn’t bother turning around. Domingo had already stopped by, and Carlos would be in last.

“What’s up, Nacho?” the dealer greeted him, and Jade heard him pull a chair out to sit in the usual spot.

“‘Sup?” Nacho replied automatically while Jade took another bite of her taco, watching Tuco shake a crystal out of the baggie and onto the table in front of him.

“Bullshit is what’s up,” the dealer slid a folded stack of bills over to Nacho, mistaking the generic response for an invitation to vent, apparently. “Found my side bitch in bed with some other Sancho last night, so I’ve had to deal with that shit.” In front of him, Nacho rose an eyebrow before slowly grabbing for the cash and unfolding it. Jade glanced over at the dealer from her food before meeting Nacho’s eyes, and they shared a silent and brief look of annoyance.

Jade took a second bite of her taco then, while Tuco in front of her began crushing up the crystal with the heel of his knife, and Nacho started counting the cash. “It's like, you can’t trust no bitch in this fuckin’ city. Uh, no offense Jade,” the dealer looked over at her with a quick smile, showing off several silver teeth. Jade nodded, though she didn’t agree.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” she said, quickly swallowing her food. “Why be faithful to the unfaithful, right?” Jade phrased it like she was taking the dealer's side.

“Beware false prophets,” Tuco added, finishing up crushing the crystal between the tabletop and his knife. Nacho ignored Tuco's strange words, still rhythmically counting the cash in his hands. Jade, as well as the blinged-out street dealer, kept watching him. Tuco scooped the power he created onto the edge of his knife before bringing it up to his nose. Jade stayed silent, with one of her tacos held up in her right hand, half-eaten, and her elbow resting on the tabletop beside her plate, while he slammed his fist down on the tabletop. “They come to you in sheep’s clothing!” he shouted after and, feeling her stomach lurch, Jade looked to Nacho, not quite sure what to expect. She’d seen him take bumps of meth before, but never that much and never with this type of reaction. “But inwardly they are ravenous wolves!”

Jade suddenly screamed when her plate shattered in front of her, an unseen force hitting the hand she was holding her taco with. She turned her attention back to Tuco, who was now looming over her. When she did, Jade saw Tuco’s bowie knife sticking out of the table where her plate had been, and impaling the taco she had been eating.

“Wh—what?” she asked him, leaning far enough back in her chair that her feet left the ground, and she nearly tipped over. The mood swing Tuco had was sudden and violent and had little precursor. The look in his eyes, which were almost enveloped in black by his pupils, was murderous. He started shouting at her in fast, unintelligible Spanish, and she could feel his breath on her face. Jade recoiled in her seat but too afraid to get up and move away.

“Tuco!” Nacho called for his attention, saying his name a second time, followed by more Spanish that Jade couldn’t catch if she tried.

“Are you punking me?!” he kept his focus on Jade, “Huh, bitch?!”

“Tuco, I—I don’t—” she started, looking to Nacho, unsure of what to do or say, but when her eyes left him, Tuco grabbed her face with his palm over her mouth and his fingers tight around her jaw. His rough grip forced her eyes back to his. Immediately she knew what was going on, his “lie detector.” She had seen him do this to nearly every dealer that came in to drop, but he had never been this violent. All she knew was that none of them were as scared as she was, and none of them cried. Repeating over and over in her head not to cry, she kept her eyes locked with Tuco’s. Jade was too afraid to blink. She sat with her face held painfully in his hand while he stared down at her.

Jade felt like she had stared at him for an eternity before she realized, through her suppressed panic, that she could barely breathe. Tuco's hand was fully covering her mouth and was pressed up against her nose. Just as she was wondering if Nacho was going to let Tuco suffocate her right there in the restaurant, she heard a chair scrape across the floor. A frightened heartbeat later, he had forced Tuco’s hand off her face.

“Tuco,” Nacho said but didn’t let go of his wrist, and they stared at each other, with Jade still in her seat too afraid to move. “Cálmate, ella es mi novia. Ella no es una traidora,” Nacho told him quietly, and Tuco yanked his arm out of Nacho’s grip. Without missing a beat, he turned around and grabbed the chair behind him, hurling it across the restaurant.

“Fuck!” he yelled at Nacho before making his way to the back of the restaurant, punching the closest brick wall to him.

Still standing by Jade, Nacho and her shared a look, Nacho’s emotions nearly unreadable to her, before he followed Tuco.

“You’re… you’re bleeding,” the street dealer stated as Nacho and Tuco disappeared into the back of the restaurant. Jade turned her wide eyes to him, noting a similar expression on his own face. “Look,” he pointed and Jade, thinking maybe a shard from the plate had hit her arms or something, looked down. Instead of a small cut or a few drops of blood, she found her right hand and arm were streaked with blood. They were dripping deep red all over the tabletop, down her black shirt, and onto her jean shorts and thighs.

Suddenly panicking, Jade scooted back from the table and stood up, nearly knocking her chair over. Had Tuco stabbed her? How could she not tell? Why wasn’t she in pain?

“I—I don’t—uh—” Jade started, her brain stalling. The dealer reached for the paper napkin dispenser on the table he was sat at and pulled a few out, handing them to Jade, but it was like trying to mop up the water in a sinking boat. She wasn’t sure where to start and wiped the napkins from her elbow to her wrist, quickly saturating them. Still unable to think clearly, she shoved the bloody napkins into her shorts pockets before reaching with her bloody hand for the napkin dispenser on her own table.

Only at that moment did Jade realize she couldn’t move three of her fingers. She counted them, and then again recounted all five of her fingers. For a horrifying moment, Jade had thought Tuco had cut them off. After reassuring herself that she hadn’t lost her fingers, she reached for the napkins instead with her left hand and kept wiping the blood off her arm and then her hand. Only at that point, rubbing several paper napkins over the knuckles of her fingers on her right hand, did she realize where all the blood was coming from. Tuco had sliced open her middle, ring, and pinky finger.

Immediately upon laying her eyes on them, she felt her missing pain. Truly panicking now, she tore several more napkins out of the dispenser and wrapped them around her fingers tightly, gasping at the sharp burn it caused. Despite the pain, Jade was able to briefly stifle the bleeding so she could wipe her arm again. After, she wiped off her bare thighs, before panicking and trying to clean the table and floor again. In her irrationality, she was afraid that Tuco might see and get mad at her for bleeding all over the place.

“¿Que pasó? What did you do?” she heard a heavy accent as she was trying to clean the blood around Tuco’s knife stuck in the table. Jade quickly looked away from the blade to find the owner of the restaurant standing before her. He was looking at her like it was her fault. Like she had been the one to stab a knife into his table. Like she had thrown a chair across the room.

Jade opened her mouth, trying to find words to respond to him but quickly snapped it shut when she saw Tuco walking out of the kitchen, Nacho hot on his heels.

“Todo esta bien. Regresen al travajo,” Tuco told him flatly, and Jade had to fight her instincts to get up and run when he approached her, holding a ceramic bowl in one of his hands and a spoon in the other.

The owner hesitated a moment before moving past Tuco and Nacho, heading back for the kitchen. Tuco turned his attention to Jade then, and she tried to keep her composure instead of allowing herself to break down sobbing. He was silent, setting the bowl in front of her, and she saw that it was filled with lime sherbet. In her panicked state, Jade thought that he expected her to stick her wounded hand in it. Only when he thrust the spoon into the sherbet did Jade understand she was supposed to eat it.

Jade wasn’t hungry in the first place, and now she was scared she would be sick from sheer nerves. Despite this, she forced herself to reach forward with her left hand and grab the spoon from the bowl. Jade flinched, nearly dropping the spoon when Tuco grabbed his bowie knife out of the table in front of her. He ripped up some of the laminated particleboard as he did, not concerned about the restaurant’s furniture that he was destroying.

Tuco sheathed the knife before crouching next to Jade’s chair, and she wasn’t sure if she should be focused on her sherbet or on him. She was afraid to look anywhere else, especially to Nacho, in case that’s what triggered Tuco’s freak out in the first place.

“Jade, I’m sorry,” he told her, and Jade had to stop herself from recoiling when she felt one of his hands land on her bare thigh.

“Nope, it’s all good,” Jade forced, quickly shoving too large of a bite of the lime sherbet into her mouth.

“These people that come in here,” he kept explaining despite Jade trying to convince him it was fine. “They’re all traitors at heart. I mistook you for one,” he told her. Jade didn’t know what to say, so she ate more of the sherbet to keep her mouth occupied. “And I’m sorry. Because you and Nacho, you’re real people.”

Jade kept her eyes on Tuco’s, realizing his irises were nearly enveloped in black from the meth. “Right,” she nodded, agreeing. She’d probably agree with anything he said at that moment.

“I trust you like you’re my blood,” he stressed, and Jade nodded.

“Yeah, of course,” she spoke through the sherbet, quickly swallowing it. Jade didn’t even know what that meant, she only saw Tuco maybe two times a month when Nacho would ask her to tag along for drops.

Finally, Tuco stood back up, his hand leaving her thigh, before he turned around, realizing that the dealer was still present, glued to his seat in fear like Jade was. When Tuco turned his back to her, Jade immediately looked to Nacho, unable to tell him everything she needed to with just her eyes. She didn’t feel any relief from it, realizing that Nacho looked worried, possibly scared.

He kept his eyes on her for a moment, allowing time for Tuco to walk up to the dealer and stare him down where he sat.

“What are you still doing here? Leave!” Nacho rose his voice at the man. In response, he almost tripped getting out of his seat to get out of the restaurant. Once the door had swung closed behind him, Nacho grabbed Jade’s bowl of lime sherbet and walked back to his original seat, nodding for her to follow him. Still holding her spoon in her left hand, and with her right wrapped in paper napkins, Jade slowly stood up and made her way gingerly around Tuco and the pieces of broken plate that had landed on the floor. She sat to Nacho’s left, in front of her bowl, and kept awkwardly eating with her uninjured, non-dominant hand, unsure of what else to do.

“Let me see,” he told her, reaching for her right hand and setting it on the table.

“Was that the last one?” Tuco asked Nacho, watching what he was doing with Jade’s hand. She had to clench her jaw to keep from making any sound when Nacho peeled off the paper napkins around her fingers. Mentally, Jade kept repeating her mantra of “don’t cry.”

“We’re waiting on Carlos. That’s it,” Nacho answered Tuco without looking up from Jade’s hand. He moved the blood-soaked napkins aside before wrapping each finger individually with clean napkins where her knuckles had been sliced. As a distraction, Jade looked up to the clock in the restaurant and figured the last dealer had stayed late due to Tuco’s fit, so Carlos was due any minute.

Bringing her attention back to the current situation, she started hearing a rhythmic tapping. She looked down, past Nacho, to see Tuco stabbing the tip of his knife into the already ruined table repeatedly. It was a fitting though destructive idle tick for him, Jade realized.

“Hold those in place,” Nacho told Jade quietly, ignoring Tuco’s antics, and Jade tried to do the same. Though it hurt, Jade balled her right hand into a loose fist so she could hold the napkins in place and still eat her sherbet. The sweetness of it was starting to make her feel sick, but she was afraid of what might happen if she didn’t consume all of Tuco’s peace offering.

In the middle of spoonful’s of the melting sherbet, Jade noticed a shadow pass the front window of the restaurant, and she looked up. As expected, Carlos was walking to the restaurant’s entrance. He slowed to a stop, looking through the window to see the ruined table that Tuco was rhythmically stabbing, the shattered plate and tacos, and Jade’s wrapped up hand. He didn’t linger and moved to the door, opening it and glancing first to Tuco and then to Nacho.

“Whatchu got for me, bitch?” Tuco asked him, his stabbing ceasing with the knife’s point still digging into the particleboard tabletop.

“I’m heavy as usual,” Carlos stated, taking Tuco’s unfriendly question as an invitation to come inside and sit down, the door swinging closed behind him. He walked to the seat across from Nacho as if the restaurant was in a reasonable condition, and only then did he glance back at Jade’s hand and then to her face. “¿Que pasó?” he asked, looking to Nacho as he pulled out the cash he owed.

Nacho only shook his head, taking the rubber band off of cash Carlos handed to him and started counting.

“You do that?” he asked, and Nacho quickly stopped counting. Jade even looked up from her nearly finished lime sherbet to realize that he was addressing Tuco. Jade looked to Tuco then, only seeing him smile in response.

Nacho started counting again shortly after, and Jade turned back to her bowl, glad that she had finally finished the sherbet. She set her spoon in the empty ceramic before she heard a chair scrape loudly on the floor, and she jumped in shock. She looked back to Tuco, seeing him stand and pull the knife out of the table before he walked over to her.

“Tuco?” Nacho asked him as he stopped counting again, specifically watching his knife as he neared Jade.

Tuco didn’t respond to him. Instead, he walked up to Jade and bent down at the same time he tilted her head up with the hand not holding his knife. She couldn’t keep herself relaxed, and her whole body tensed up when he grabbed her. “That’s one of the wolves,” Tuco whispered, so close to her ear that she could feel his nose and lips against her hair and skin. At that moment, Jade had a horrifying suspicion that he was about to kill Carlos.

She forced her eyes to stay on him as he pulled away, standing straight. Tuco held Jade’s gaze before moving around her, making his way to the seat next to Carlos. He pulled the chair out and faced the back towards Carlos before sitting in it backward and staring him down.

Nacho waited a moment as if he were testing to see if Tuco would explode like Jade feared before he began recounting the cash, this time much quicker. Jade looked to the money in Nacho’s hands, wondering if he was able to even keep up with how fast he was passing the bills between one to the other. Her silent question was answered when Nacho stopped about two-thirds of the way through, saying, “You’re good.”

Carlos looked from Tuco to Nacho with a nod. “Cool. We good?” he asked. Jade knew as well as Carlos that Nacho couldn’t make that decision with Tuco staring him down.

“Tuco?” Nacho tried prompting him, wrapping the cash in the rubber band and tossing it into the duffel bag with the rest of the money they had collected.

Carlos, looking fearless like usual, glanced back at Tuco and waited for an answer. Jade glanced between the two, fearing that any second Tuco would snap and start stabbing Carlos.

Instead, Tuco turned to her, a monotone question leaving his lips. “He good?”

Tuco wanted her to say no. He wanted Jade to tell him that Carlos wasn't "good," she could see it in his dilated eyes. She felt like she couldn't breathe. Jade wanted to look to Nacho on her right, to see if he could dismiss Carlos instead. She wouldn't even let herself glance at Carlos, who was sitting patiently, waiting for her answer. If Jade did, if she told Carlos he could leave, it'd be like ignoring Tuco. If she said Carlos could go, would he suspect her as a traitor again?

Picturing Tuco attacking Carlos, Tuco's knife sticking out of Carlos' chest, Jade's mouth went dry.

“Yeah,” her voice cracked, and she waited for the storm to follow. Instead, the four of them sat in silence, Carlos being the first to break it.

“Cool,” Carlos stood from his chair. “I’ll see you,” he told Nacho before nodding to Jade, glancing at her hand one last time before leaving the restaurant. Jade watched him go, afraid every second that Tuco would call him back or attack her again.

As the door shut behind Carlos, Jade felt her shoulders relax. Next to her, Nacho pulled the duffel bag up onto the table. After, he leaned forward and pressed his thumbs into his eyes. He took a moment for himself before saying, “I’m going to drop her off at home. Are we good?”

“We’re good,” Tuco stated in that same monotone, looking to Nacho before grabbing for the bag and zipping it up.

“If you need me, call me,” Nacho took that as his queue to stand up, and he tapped Jade on her shoulder so she’d know to stand as well.

“Later, Tuco,” Jade told him like she usually would as she followed Nacho out, realizing her voice was shaking as bad as her body was.

“You keep an eye out for them,” Tuco warned her, and she ran into Nacho’s back when he stopped at the restaurant door.

“Go to the van,” Nacho looked to her quickly as she took a step back. She didn’t say anything further when Nacho opened the door for her before handing her his van’s keys. He stepped aside to let her pass, and Jade didn’t hesitate, thankful that she didn’t have to come up with a response to Tuco’s paranoid words.

She walked stiffly out of the restaurant to the side of the building where Nacho’s Chevy van was parked. Jade felt like she was on autopilot when she unlocked the passenger door and climbed into the van. From the passenger seat, she stuck the keys into the ignition and turned the engine over so she could start the AC. After, she sat back against the hot seat and stared straight ahead of her, trying to convince herself that she was okay, that she was lucky it was over with.

She heard the driver’s door open then and didn’t bother glancing over to Nacho as he sat in the driver’s seat, closing the door behind him before sighing heavily.

“I’m fine,” she blurted out before Nacho could even ask her. If he was going to ask in the first place.

“I know to not ask you that anymore,” he told her, and Jade shut her eyes, willing herself to calm down. Her hand was starting to sting, and Jade realized that she was unconsciously squeezing both of her hands into fists. She opened her eyes and looked down to her lap, seeing fresh blooms of red spreading over the white makeshift bandages on her fingers.

Jade took a deep breath in, looking up to the road to try and distract herself, acting like the cuts Tuco gave her weren’t there. It wasn’t helping, and the fear and anxiety she had managed to suppress started flooding her, blurring her vision with tears. She shut her eyes again, tightly this time, feeling them burn and her jaw ache as she tried to stop herself from crying hysterically.

A loud sob escaped her before she could stop it, and her left hand flew over her mouth, but it was unable to stifle her hysterics. If Tuco really wanted, that knife could have gone through her hand. Jade was almost positive he missed on purpose. Hell, he could have driven the thing through her chest with how close he was and how worked up he got. She was so sure Carlos was going to die. Tuco was going to kill either him or herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nena - Baby (as in the coloquial, not a child)
> 
> “Ella se esta riendo de mi.” — She’s laughing at me.
> 
> Chavala — Chick/Girl
> 
> “¿Crees que a ella le gustan más los chingados que a nosotros?” — Do you think she likes those fuckers more than she likes us?
> 
> “Ella está aquí con nosotros, no por ahí con ellos.” — She's here with us, not out there with them.
> 
> “Seguro. La estás mirando, ese. ¿Quieres un turno?” — Sure. You've been staring at her ese. Want a turn?
> 
> “Sabes que no me gusta bailar.” — You know I don't like dancing.
> 
> “Señor Tuco, los tacos para la dama.” — Mister  
> Tuco, the tacos for the lady.
> 
> Sancho - “the other guy” in a relationship. Apparently this gives me street cred, according to the boyfriend.
> 
> “Cálmate, ella es mi novia. Ella no es una traidora.” - Calm down, she is my girlfriend (!!!). She is not a traitor.
> 
> “¿Que pasó?” — What happened?
> 
> “Todo esta bien. Regresen al travajo.” — Everything’s fine. Go back to work.
> 
> Did anyone catch that Thoughtless music video reference? Lol, I'm dumb but couldn't help it. Also, Nacho, why you lying like that? 😂 That novia/girlfriend thing may or may not snowball into something huge... just saying.
> 
> Anyway! Season 5 is finally here, and though I kind of anticipated this, I didn't expect to have to edit this story so suddenly. I won't delve into spoilers but to keep up with canon I have to edit a certain someone's name. Also, apparently we see Carlos' car in Season three, episode ten and... he drives a Firebird. So that's getting updated also. I might hold off until the end of season five because I just know there will be more things I need to change, but going forward the updates will have the corrected canon stuff.
> 
> Speaking of season 5, I won't mention any spoilers in the fic, or in the notes. Comments aren't moderated, however, so just be careful there. I mentioned this in the Nacho POV scenes but figured I may as well restate that here.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading this, and thanks to everyone who has left comments/kudos or subscribed. I never in a million years thought this would get over 500 hits and here we are sitting at 771. Lastly, thanks to the boyfriend for the Spanish and helping with edits.


	13. My Kind of Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with the repercussions of Tuco's outburst, Nacho brings Jade to his apartment so he can keep an eye on her, and he starts giving off mixed signals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Mac DeMarco's song "My Kind of Woman".
> 
> This chapter is a whopping 27 and a half novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 49 minutes to read. Folks, we've officially passed 100K words.
> 
> Per usual, the spoiler warning for Season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other content warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Also, no Spanish was used in this chapter 😊

Nacho didn’t drive her back home. Instead, he drove her ten minutes up the street towards his apartments. By that time, Jade had calmed mostly down; at least her panic had receded. She didn’t ask why Nacho had brought her back to his apartment but found herself not caring that she couldn’t just go home and cry in bed. At least she was away from Tuco.

Though it was still daylight (and hot as hell), Nacho’s apartment was dark say for the few golden strands of light peeking through the blinds of the two windows visible from the living room. Nacho didn’t bother turning on the lights. He led Jade quickly into the hallway towards his bathroom, only pausing to lower the temperature on his thermostat.

“Nacho,” Jade called for his attention, following him into the bathroom as he flipped the light on and looked through his bathroom cabinet behind the mirror. “I think its okay,” she cleared her throat so her voice wouldn’t crack.

“Your hand’s okay wrapped in napkins after getting cut with a knife covered in meth, and god knows what else?” Nacho questioned, sounding more on edge and upset than she had thought he would be. He grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and bandages out of the cabinet before setting them on the counter. After, in Jade’s silence, he unbuttoned and removed his shirt. Next off was his watch before he started washing his hands. He was left in a red tank top, and Jade’s eyes watched his arms for a moment before looking down to her feet.

“Come here,” he turned off the water and turned around to face her.

“I can do it,” Jade looked back up to him.

“Please?” he held his own hand out to her, this time his voice was much calmer and level, and Jade stepped forward, placing her right hand in his so he could start peeling off the napkins from her cuts. Once they were off and tossed into the bathroom’s trash, Nacho reached for the sink faucet again, turning it back on. Quickly, Jade tired, yanking her hand out of his.

“What?” he asked her, keeping a firm grip on her wrist.

“That’s too hard,” Jade told him quickly.

“Too hard?” he asked, raising his scarred eyebrow at her.

“The water,” she said, reaching around him with her left hand to turn the water pressure down and also decrease the temperature from scalding hot to something more room temperature.

“You expect me to wash the blood off your hand with that?” Nacho asked her, looking to the trickle of water now coming from the faucet. He turned it back up, albeit not full blast like before, and moved her arm between his own arm and his body to hold it in place. Jade didn’t have a choice but to stand directly behind him and let Nacho wash the cuts on her hand, hoping it wouldn’t hurt as bad as she thought it might.

Of course, it did.

“It hurts!” she complained immediately, trying to pull her arm back, but she couldn’t free herself from Nacho’s grip.

“Baby,” he teased her, turning the water off after only a few seconds.

Jade sighed, feeling the pain subside, and leaned her forehead against the back of Nacho’s shoulder. “Use a pressure washer next time, it’d hurt less,” she mumbled.

“I got a cigar cutter somewhere. We can just cut your fingers off?” Nacho suggested, and Jade almost laughed.

“You smoke cigars?” she asked, forehead still resting on his shoulder. Jade had never seen Nacho smoke anything, let alone a cigar.

“No, I don’t,” he admitted and left Jade confused for a moment.

“You… oh,” Jade understood, realizing he had already practically told her what the cigar cutter was for. She heard Nacho sigh, but he didn’t say anything more. She was about to ask if he was done with her hand or if she could be let go of when she felt an intense sting over her sliced fingers, and she reflexively jerked back.

“That hurts! Nacho!” she said quickly, still unable to pull out of Nacho’s grasp, realizing that he was pouring the alcohol over her cuts. Her left hand was fisted in the back of his red tank top, and she stood up on her tiptoes so she could see over his right shoulder.

“That was the worst part,” he told her, setting the alcohol bottle down on the counter from where he was pouring it over her hand.

“It still stings,” she complained, “Blow on it or something.”

“Blow on it?” Nacho chuckled, looking back to her. “I’ll get spit in the wounds, and then I’ll have to pour more rubbing alcohol on them.” Jade tried pulling her hand free again, not caring about spit or whatever, and he watched her a moment before using his left hand to fan off her right. “Better?” he asked as Jade unclenched her left hand from his tank top.

“Yeah,” Jade lowered back to her feet, feeling the burn subside but still leaned against Nacho’s back, her forehead on his shoulder blade once again. “If that was the worst of it, do you still have to hold my arm like this?” she asked him, speaking into his shoulder.

Nacho didn’t verbally respond. Instead, he let her free, releasing her wrist and lifting his right arm so Jade could pull hers back to her body and examine the cuts on her fingers for the first time, sans napkins and blood. The worst of it was on her middle finger with a deep gouge across her knuckle. Her thumb and index finger had been unscathed, and the slice was straight down. It fell between the second and third knuckles of her middle and ring fingers and nearly cut her pinky nail itself, it was so close to her cuticle.

“Hey,” Nacho regained her attention, and she looked up to him before feeling one of his hands settle on her waist. He nodded to the bathroom countertop, where he had moved aside the rubbing alcohol, bandages, and his watch, and Jade understood. She nodded back at him, and while his other hand dropped to her thigh, she put her uninjured arm around his neck. After, he bent down slightly to pick her up and swing her around to sit her on the counter. Much like at the party last night, Jade’s legs automatically wrapped around his waist. Only this time, she was sober and better able to comprehend how close they were. He stayed standing close to the counter between Jade’s open knees, his hips still touching her bare thighs. With Jade’s thoughts on how close Nacho was, his were still on her injured hand. He took her right hand in his own again, gently examining the cuts for himself.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” Jade admitted, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, and watched Nacho smirk. He looked up from her hand after a moment, meeting her eyes.

“You sounded like you were dying a few seconds ago,” he teased her before grabbing for the box of assorted bandages.

“You didn’t even warn me about the alcohol,” Jade pouted.

“That was kind of the point,” he glanced at her with a slight smirk over his lips before he pulled several bandages of different sizes out of the box. “I’m sorry,” he then apologized, ripping open the smallest bandage and using it for the short, paper-cut like laceration on her pinky finger.

“It was just a few seconds—” Jade started, trying to shake off his apology and let him know that none was needed for that.

“You shouldn’t have been there at all.” He wasn’t apologizing for the rubbing alcohol, Jade realized. She watched Nacho’s face while he focused on wrapping a second, larger bandage around her ring finger.

“You told me he’s happier when I’m around—”

“That shouldn’t matter,” Nacho cut her off again. “Tuco is insane. I don’t know why I thought you could help that. You shouldn’t have been there.”

Jade, instead of telling him that it was okay and that everything ended up fine, she thought about how frightened she was, for herself, and for Carlos after. “He… he told me that he mistook me for a traitor? Why?” Jade asked him, but Nacho didn’t answer, working on carefully applying the last bandage to the gouge on the knuckle of her middle finger. In his silence, Jade still quickly put two and two together. “He has no idea about the Oxy, does he? That’s why you told me it didn’t exist when I first met him?” Nacho’s eyes met hers again as he looked up, remaining silent. “You’re selling it behind his back… Nacho,” she pressed for some sort of response. Jade watched him swallow, and his jaw clench before both of his hands settled on her hips.

“That’s not his thing,” he tried explaining as if Jade didn’t understand what she was saying.

“Why’s it not his thing?” Jade asked him. “Why do only Domingo, Carlos, and I know about it?” she felt stupid for only asking about this now. It was always right there, plain as day in front of her this whole time. Corey and Joel didn’t even know about the OxyContin.

“If you don’t want to deal that anymore you don’t have to—”

“It’s too late for that if Tuco thinks we’re traitors, Nacho,” Jade snapped at him, and Nacho took a step away from her on the counter. Both his hands left her waist, and his hips moved from her thighs, understanding that she was upset with him. “You’re selling all these pills behind his back, and he’s got no idea, and he doesn’t see any of the profits. He’s not wrong about us being traitors,” Jade kept connected the dots, revealing the image of betrayal that Nacho had managed to hide.

“Right,” was all that he responded with.

“Why would you think this was okay? What about crossing your psycho boss sounded like a good idea to you?” Jade asked him, finding herself getting truly angry with him.

“What, you’d pass up an easy twenty grand a month if you had that chance?” Nacho defended himself, taking another step back and crossing his arms. He had put on a stance Jade recognized from him dealing with people when he was trying to be intimidating, only she could see through that now. Jade hadn’t been afraid of or intimidated by Nacho for a long time.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know, but you’re stupid greedy,” Jade shook her head, using a tone that let him know she wasn’t intimidated, and his stance wasn’t working on her. “I was convinced Tuco was going to kill Carlos and me earlier. That’s worth twenty grand a month to you?”

“You’re calling me greedy for taking an opportunity like this? I’d be ‘stupid’ not to,” he defended himself.

“No. It’s greedy, and it’s selfish to put other people in danger like that,” Jade crossed her own arms now, careful of her injured hand.

He didn’t respond immediately. After a brief silence, he ran one of his hands over his face and glanced around the small bathroom before looking back to Jade. “When have you ever wanted anything?” Nacho suddenly asked her, and she could see his anger now; it was burning behind his dark eyes and slowly eating through the rest of his features.

“When have I ever wanted anything?” Jade quoted him before scoffing. “Human beings have wants, that doesn’t make all of us greedy.”

“No,” he shook his head, “You don’t understand. When have you wanted anything?” he pointed at her. “You, the pretty, middle class, white girl who has both her parents, and a nice house, and money, and siblings, and friends?” Nacho counted off on his fingers. Jade suddenly didn’t understand where he was coming from, or what had brought this into their argument. “When have you truly wanted something you couldn’t have? Hm?”

Her jaw stayed tense, she couldn’t open it to respond if she even had a reply to him. So Jade stayed quiet, and after a moment, Nacho shook his head. “You’ve never wanted anything, you don’t know what ‘want’ means. You’ve had your whole life handed to you on a silver platter.”

“Stop it,” she managed, but her words didn’t have the same bite as earlier. She sounded timid now like she was close to tears. The stinging in her eyes told her that she actually was.

“I bet you’ve never had to take a cold shower in your life. You’ve always had food in the fridge, you have no idea what real hunger is. You don’t know what it’s like to not have gas in the middle of winter, you don’t know what it’s like to not have a cooler when its one hundred degrees outside—”

“Stop!” Jade forced out, her voice sounding more shrill than forceful. He obliged anyways and stayed silent, staring at her. Jade had to quickly rub at her eyes and look away from him.

“You think if I didn’t take opportunities like these pills, I’d have any of this?” Nacho asked her after a moment, the anger in his voice was gone, and she looked back to him but couldn’t hold eye contact. “Everything has a high risk in this business. Everything,” Nacho turned around like he was starting to pace, but the bathroom was too small of a space for him to do so. Jade watched him run a hand down his face as he turned back to her, now rubbing at the back of his neck. “You know this. You understand it. You’ve seen it first hand, and you have the choice not to stick around,” he tried arguing with her, but Jade shook her head. “You’ve had that choice for the past few months.”

“I’ve got fifteen grand just sitting under my bed, and I have no idea what to do with it. You know why I’m still dealing for you,” Jade corrected him. In response, Nacho sighed. Hie eyes kept focusing on the open door as if deciding whether or not to walk away from the conversation.

“I told you that you were done. That you could quit and that I trusted you not to snitch,” Nacho countered, looking back to her.

“You also said you didn’t trust Corey and Joel,” Jade reminded him, refusing to budge on her position. Nacho actually turned around, leaving the bathroom and entering the hallway before turning around a second later and walking back to stand in the doorway.

“The first time they’ve talked to you in a month was yesterday. Why’s it matter?” Nacho countered, before sighing. “I told them the same thing a few days later. I told them that they could stop, and we’d be through,” Nacho told her, pointing with his index finger before shaking his head. “They both wanted to keep dealing.”

“Bullshit, they would have said something to me,” Jade didn’t believe him.

“Yeah, I thought so too. I was wondering why you didn’t say anything to me after I told them,” Nacho shrugged before pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “If you want out, you can leave,” he told her without so much as a glance up from his phone as he walked down the short hallway and out of her view.

Jade let her arms fall from her chest, her hands falling limp in her lap as she sat there. She debated whether or not to just leave, as Nacho had suggested, or if she should text Corey or Joel and ask them if what Nacho said was even real. After a moment, she decided to pull her phone out, weaseling it out of her back pocket with her left hand, before flipping it open and realizing she already had a text, but from Carlos.

From: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
Tuco do that to you

To: Beard  
Text: 1/2  
yea bad meth maybe  
Text: 2/2  
thought he was gonna stab you earlier too

It was tough texting him back, Jade couldn’t keep a proper grip on her phone in her right hand. She resorted to holding it in her left and typing the letters out using her right index finger like how some old person who didn’t know how to use a flip phone would text. After, Jade sat on Carlos’ text to her before moving to her contacts and stopping on Corey’s name, debating whether or not to text him, before moving on to Joel. She paused there as well, wondering where she stood in the group of friends and if what she had stupidly admitted the night prior had split them down the middle. Sure they all shared a late breakfast, but that was the whole group. Jade had only gone for Tammy’s sake and because Lena had practically begged.

Before she could decide on texting Joel or not, Carlos had responded.

From: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
Like to see the punk bitch try. Nacho and I both had heat.

Jade took in a sharp breath and snapped her phone shut. She had no idea that either of them had guns, but then again, she realized it shouldn’t surprise her. Jade had seen other dealers walk into the restaurant with their shirts tucked behind the handles of their handguns like they were showing them off as an accessory. Nacho and Domingo had even been bugging her about carrying around a gun while she was dealing.

Jade looked to her injured hand then, her cuts all covered precisely by bandages thanks to Nacho. The still throbbing wounds were almost like a warning, along with Tuco’s erratic behavior. Nacho wasn’t going to stop buying pills from Pryce, at least not any time soon, and as far as she knew, she was the only one selling them for Nacho. If she quit, it might force him to rethink what he was doing, but…  
Despite the physical injury, display of Tuco’s temper today, and how much she dreaded dealing with drug addicts every day, Jade still wasn’t fully committed to quitting. She wasn’t hesitating due to the money either. Like she had told Nacho only moments before, there was fifteen thousand dollars in drug money under her bed. No, Jade was hesitant because of Nacho himself. She was really starting to like him, despite their argument, and if she thought he was stupidly greedy or if he thought she was a spoiled brat. But he kept flipping their relationship back to business no matter what happened between them. He’d just dressed her wounds and had his hands all over her waist and hips, but in an instant, they were back to the topic of her dealing.

Maybe she was the stupid one, Jade wondered as she slid off the counter and stuck her phone in her back pocket. Nacho was only coming across as “desperate” for her because she was the only person dumb enough to do his dirty work for him and sell those damned pills.

With a sigh, Jade left the bathroom. Peeking around the corner into the living room, she saw Nacho leaning against the bar counter with his phone up to his ear. Jade hesitated, watching him stand there in his living room with his back to her. Despite not being able to see his face, Nacho looked stressed out and impatient. She didn’t say anything to him; instead, she moved out of the hall and closer to him.   
She waited a moment until he noticed her in the living room with him. When he did see her, his shoulders fell in a heavy sigh.

“Do you want me to take you home?” he asked her, and Jade could barely hear hold music coming from his phone.

“I—I wanna keep dealing too,” she told him instead and watched his eyebrow raise, his phone falling away from his ear and staying in his hand at his side.

“No you don’t,” he told her, and Jade immediately wanted to rebut him but stopped herself.

“Are you on hold?” she asked instead, looking to his phone and back to his face.

“No,” he answered, and looked down at his cell phone also. In the same second, Nacho pressed the call end button with his thumb before shoving it in his pocket. “You don’t want me to take you home?” he questioned before Jade could ask who he had been calling.

“If I’m bugging you, I can catch a bus home,” Jade shrugged, and Nacho almost laughed at her, the ghost of a smile on his lips as a huff of air left his mouth.

“That’s going to be a long bus ride across town,” he told her, shaking his head, but Jade already knew that.

Jade hesitated, trying to think of what to say to him before deciding to step forward instead. She was careful with her right hand, but wrapped her arms around him in a hug, standing on her toes in her sneakers.

Like a few days prior in the parking lot, after he had snapped her phone in two and ended her ordeal with Dylan, it took Nacho another second to respond. At first, he was rigid before slowly relaxing and returning the gesture. Like before, Jade felt him hold her in place, keeping her steady on her toes, and she decided to apologize to him at that moment.

“Sorry I called you dumb and greedy,” she told Nacho, speaking over his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be apologizing to me, I deserved that,” he stated in much the same fashion, his words quietly moving past her braided hair. Jade stepped back, out of their embrace, wondering how he could do a complete one-eighty like that. “You really want to keep working for Domingo?” he asked her with his arms now limp at his side.

Jade realized he had chosen his words carefully, instead of asking if she wanted to keep working “for him” individually. “Yeah. Is there, like, a blood oath I gotta take or something?” Jade tried joking and managed a smile.

“No,” Nacho answered honestly, “I’ll still keep you mostly under wraps. Just Tuco, who knows about you that I gotta worry about.” Jade sighed, knowing that meant she was going to keep slinging the OxyContin for him but didn’t feel like arguing.

“Fine,” she answered shortly. Nacho didn’t say anything more, but instead, he stared at her, as if he were suddenly able to read her very thoughts, and Jade was suddenly nervous again, butterflies finding their way into her stomach.

“If I ask how you are, will you answer me honestly instead of just saying you’re ‘okay’ or ‘fine’?” he finally asked, and it was Jade’s turn to sigh.

“What if I really am just fine or okay?” Jade asked him, forcing herself to move around his couch and plop down if only to avoid him staring at her like he was.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been just fine or okay when I’m around,” Nacho told her truthfully, and she decided not to verbally agree.

Instead, she answered vaguely, though truthfully. “I’m nervous. You make me nervous, but I’ll get over it.” She didn’t look at him; Jade kept her eyes on his television, the screen black. Without seeing, she heard him set his phone down on the bar counter between his kitchen and living room before he walked in front of her, between the couch and his coffee table, and sat on the opposite end, a few feet of space between them.

“Thank you,” he spoke first when he finally looked relaxed, and Jade glanced over to him.

“For admitting I’m nervous?” Jade questioned and he looked to her as well.

“You shouldn’t feel nervous, I’ve been doing this for a long time and you’re not even involved as far as most anyone’s concerned,” he tried reassuring her. Jade realized he either mistook her words or decided to intentionally misinterpret them. Either way, she wasn’t going to correct him. She decided to keep quiet and let him keep talking or at least wait to say something after the butterflies in her stomach died out. It was Nacho who chose to speak up first.

“You don’t have to leave tonight,” he said quickly, and Jade looked to him again, wondering if he had actually just blurted out those words without thinking.

Jade smiled, forgetting her nerves and turned on the couch to face him. “I haven’t showered in, like, three days, and you still want to hang out with me?”

“Did you forget that I have a bathroom? It’s a nice bathroom,” Nacho teased her, and Jade laughed at him.

“It is a nice bathroom,” Jade agreed. “And as much as I’d like to sleep in your two thousand dollar bed another night, I can’t kick you out of it again. I’d feel bad.”

“Really?” Nacho asked her, his scarred eyebrow raised. “Fine, sleep on the couch.”

Jade took a deep, thoughtful breath in. She was searching for another reason not to stay. Surprisingly, there were several Jade could think of, though she did actually want to. “I don’t think I can shower with this,” she rose her right hand, showing him the bandages. “Can’t hardly move my fingers.”

“Take a bath,” he countered, crossing his arms loosely over his chest.

“Do you even have anything for a bath?” Jade asked him, raising her own eyebrow at him.

“I got body wash,” he shrugged, and Jade’s face contorted in faux disgust.

“No, you don’t. I’ve seen what you have, its crap,” Jade told Nacho, making him laugh.

“Oh, its crap, huh?” he asked her with a smile, “Okay.” Before she could respond, he stood up from the couch again, and Jade was suddenly confused.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he walked past her to the counter at the kitchen’s bar window.

“I’m gonna go buy you stuff so you can take a bath,” he answered her, grabbing his phone and his keys from the counter before heading into the hallway. 

“What?” Jade asked, watching him disappear for a moment before reemerging, shrugging his button-up shirt on.

“I’m going to the store. Don’t break anything,” Nacho told her as he walked to his front door. Jade quickly jumped up from the couch to try and stop him, stepping in his way.

“No, Nacho, don’t. Seriously, I’m fine—!” without warning, he had picked her up around her waist and plopped her back onto his couch.

“I’ll be right back,” he told her before reaching for the remote on his coffee table, turning on the television and his sound system. He handed the remote to her after, and Jade accepted it with her left hand, defeated.

“Didn’t you just finish calling me a spoiled brat?” she asked as he headed back for the door and he actually paused, his hand on the doorknob as he looked back to her.

“It’s not always a bad thing,” he answered her after a second of thought, and he opened his door, letting himself out. Jade didn’t say anything else, watching him disappear behind his front door and hearing him lock it behind himself.

With a sigh, she turned to sit forward on the couch. She thought that she might as well try to find something on TV, and reached for the remote with her left hand. After finding the TV guide channel and watching all the channels scroll by twice, Jade suddenly realized that Nacho was most likely clueless about what to buy her. If he got her more of the same all-in-one soap crap, he would have left for nothing. Jade dropped the remote from her left hand and moved so she could reach around herself and grab her phone out of her pocket, before flipping it open. Like before, Jade held her phone in her left hand, and use her index finger on her right to text.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
dont buy me all in one crap its bs

He took a few minutes to respond, but Jade already had her phone open on her thigh, waiting.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
I was just going to buy the most expensive stuff

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
NO  
Text: 2/2  
STOP

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Tell me what to buy you or I will

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
i dunno normal stuff

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
What normal stuff?

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
regular shampoo regular conditioner regular bubble bath  
Text: 2/2  
no get mr bubble

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Seriously?

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
ill throw a fit  
Text: 2/2  
if you dont buy me mr bubble ill temper tantrum all over your apartment

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Please don’t I’ll buy it

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
thank youuu

~-----~

He had bought her Mr. Bubble. Nacho had also bought her, though he denied it, the most expensive shampoo and conditioner the store had. It was definitely more valuable than anything Jade herself had ever used, regardless. He had also bought her lotion, face wash, deodorant, and even makeup remover wipes, a wide-tooth comb, and hair ties.

She had teased him about taking over his bathroom when she had seen everything he had brought back. Honestly, though it wasn’t shown, Jade was thankful he had thought of those extra things, especially the comb. Upon seeing it, Jade realized that detangling her wet hair with just the fingers on her non-dominant hand would have been hell.

That thought should have been a precursor to her actually trying to take a bath. While she was able to keep her bandages dry, her right hand was utterly useless. Her fingers were throbbing and ached too much to even bend. She couldn’t do much besides pinch with her index finger and thumb. Sitting in the bubble bath was easy enough. The same with washing her face, but she had purposely left shampooing and conditioning her hair for last, knowing it would be the hardest and take the longest.

Jade sat up from beneath the water with a small gasp, making sure to rub at her eyes to rid them of face wash and Mr. Bubble before opening them. She brought her right knee up from beneath the water and bubbles so she could rest her right arm on it, reminding herself to keep her hand dry.

When Jade turned to reach for the shampoo, she, unfortunately, overshot the distance and ended up smacking both the shampoo and conditioner bottles across the bathroom floor with a loud clatter.

“Goddamnit,” she cursed equally as loud before holding her left hand to her forehead in disappointment. She sighed before leaning against the side of the bathtub, trying to reach for the bottles without actually getting out of the tub but quickly realized it was a futile attempt.

The second, more disappointed sigh she gave was masked by the sound of the bathroom door opening. Jade jerked her body back into the tub before quickly yanking on the shower curtain for cover.

“Are you okay?” she heard Nacho ask, and Jade peeked around the curtain. The bathroom door was cracked open, but she couldn’t even see him through the sliver of free space.

“Yeah,” she answered, relaxing in the tub again as she leaned against the slanted back. Her right elbow was propped on the opposite edge of the tub so she could keep her injured hand above water.

“What are you doing? I thought you fell over or something,” he asked, and she laughed.

“I knocked some bottles over,” she admitted. “Can you… grab them?”

“Grab them?” Nacho repeated.

“They’re across the room, and I don’t want to get out of the tub,” she added before reaching for the curtain with her left hand, drawing it back almost all the way.

Nacho stepped into the bathroom then, and she smiled at how he was shielding his eyes from her complete side of the room with his left hand. “What, did you throw them over here?” he asked. Spotting the two bottles on the ground, Nacho bent down to pick them up.

“Yeah, ’cause, you know, I love making things more difficult for myself than they already are,” Jade answered him sarcastically. Nacho turned his back to her and took two steps backward before holding out the shampoo bottle for her. She reached out for them with her left hand, but he was still too far. “Step back farther,” she told him.

“Seriously, you can’t reach it?” Nacho took another step back, trying to blindly hand Jade the bottle, and she laughed before she took it with her left hand. She turned and set it on the opposite tub ledge facing the wall, so she wouldn’t knock it over again. When she turned back, he was already patiently waiting for her to grab the conditioner bottle.

“Don’t throw them again,” he told her, and Jade laughed again, setting it next to the shampoo bottle.

“I think I overestimated my ability to wash my hair one-handed,” Jade admitted. She leaned back, expecting Nacho to respond with something snarky and leave her alone once more. Instead, she watched him run a hand down his face before he crossed his arms. 

“Do you want help?” he asked her, and Jade’s eyebrows immediately furrowed.

“You’re gonna help me wash my hair?” she asked him, sitting up slightly as she stared at his back.

He shrugged in response, “It’s up to you.” At first, he almost sounded shy about it, but now he seemed utterly indifferent, and it confused her.

Jade caught her bottom lip between her teeth while Nacho patiently waited for an answer. She looked from him to the mountains of Mr. Bubble bubbles still left in the tub, before sitting up straight, and moving herself to the middle of the bathtub. Using her left hand, Jade moved the bubbles around herself like a shield before placing her left arm over her breasts. “You’re gonna have just as hard a time blind as I am with one hand,” she told him, before reaching for the curtain with her right hand. She gently pushed it back into place, revealing herself to Nacho’s back.

“Is that a yes?” he clarified before hesitantly turning around. His dark eyes landed on Jade in his bathtub for only half a second, but it was long enough for her to nod. As he turned his back to her again, he undid his watch from his wrist before he set it on his bathroom counter. Like earlier, he started to unbutton his shirt, and once it was off, he hung it on the towel rack. Unlike before, he also pulled at his red tank top, untucking it before he yanked it over his head and placed it with his other shirt. He looked back then, before easing himself down on the ledge of the tub and sitting behind Jade. She could feel herself blushing despite knowing she was entirely covered by the bubbles, and that Nacho couldn’t see anything. Her whole body felt warmer than the bathwater around her.

“My bathroom smells like a candy store because of your bubble bath,” he stated, and Jade huffed in laughter, realizing he was trying to calm her down.

“I think it smells fantastic. You’re welcome,” Jade told him as he reached behind her to grab for the shampoo bottle.

“It’s going to smell like bubblegum in here for weeks,” he falsely complained. “I’ve… never done this before,” he then stated after a moment, and Jade looked back at him, meeting his eyes before looking to the shampoo bottle.

“You didn’t just recently shave off all your hair?” she smiled as she met his eyes again, and he laughed at her this time.

“No, I meant— well that too,” Nacho smirked at her joke, “But I meant I’ve never washed someone else’s hair. How much of this do I use?” he asked, shaking the bottle slightly.

“Enough for my hair?” she laughed at him as he popped the cap open. He squeezed the smallest amount of shampoo into his palm, and immediately she shook her head. “No, way more.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes, really,” Jade confirmed but had to quickly stop him as he squirted nearly twice as much shampoo into his hand. “That’s way too much!”

“You have a lot of hair,” he told her, clicking the cap closed with his thumb before setting the bottle on the opposite ledge with the conditioner. He looked to her then, his palm still full of expensive shampoo, and Jade turned around, leaning back slightly as she waited for Nacho to help her. When she finally did feel his hands running over her scalp and through the length of her hair, she was surprised at just how gentle he was. Jade sat patiently as Nacho ran his fingers through her hair, distributing the shampoo before she felt them back on her head, gently creating a lather.

For a terrifying moment, Jade forgot herself and sighed against his fingers massaging her scalp, the sensation feeling heavenly. She quickly bit her tongue to stop any further noises from escaping her, feeling herself blush again.

“I think you were right,” she heard Nacho tell her quietly, “this is too much.” She felt him run his palm over her scalp, then down the length of her hair before hearing him rinse his hands off in the bathwater behind her.

“Want me to rise it out?” she asked, having to clear her throat.

“Yeah, go ahead,” he told her, and she turned her head to look at him, watching him turn his back while drying his hands off on one of the nearby towels Jade had set on the closed toilet seat. She dropped her left arm from her breasts then and scooted forward before lowering herself back in the tub. Jade had to move the mountains of bubbles away from the back of the bathtub before submersing her hair. While it was underwater, she quickly ran her left hand through the length of her hair a few times, trying to get the suds and remaining shampoo out before she sat back up. Jade managed to wring most of the water out of her hair with one hand before lowering herself for a second rinse. Jade repeated everything she had just done while watching Nacho’s back. After, while she was wringing her hair out with her left hand again, she moved back to the center of the tub. Jade let her wet hair fall down her back, before moving the slowly dwindling bubbles back in place around her.

“Okay,” she let him know she was finished after making sure the bubbles in her bath were still covering everything. She placed her left arm around her chest again before turning to look at him.

Nacho turned back to her then and sat straight from resting his elbows on his knees before twisting and reaching behind Jade’s back for the conditioner. This time, after he popped the cap open, he handed it to Jade, before becoming suddenly interested in his bathroom door, looking away from her. She dropped her left arm again, and her legs slid forward so that only her knees were barely visible above the suds and water. After, Jade accepted the conditioner bottle from Nacho. Keeping his eyes on the bathroom door, he flipped his palm up. With her left hand, she turned the bottle over and squeezed out the appropriate amount of conditioner for her long hair into his palm.

“You sure that’s not too much?” he asked as she set the conditioner with the shampoo on her other side and covered herself again with her left arm.

“It’s conditioner. It doesn’t lather,” Jade answered, and Nacho looked back to her then.

“I know how conditioner works. I really did use to have hair,” he admitted with a smirk, turning his body to face her.

“Really?” Jade asked with a laugh, “Can’t picture it.” She faced forward again, allowing him to run his fingers through her wet hair again, coating it with the high-end conditioner.

“When I was a kid, yeah,” he added, speaking softly as he worked the conditioner through her hair.

Jade thought about joking with him, but suddenly it would have felt out of place. It was too intimate of a moment, her sitting before him, veiled by only a layer of bubbles while Nacho ran his fingers over her scalp and through her hair. That realization hit her hard. Joking with him, something their relationship up to this point was built off of, felt out of place.

“Thank you for doing this,” she blurted out instead, realizing her voice sounded shaky immediately after, and she took a deep breath in, hoping to steady herself. 

“It’s fine,” Nacho responded, and Jade was unsure if he had heard that same shakiness from her.

“I’m sorry if it’s awkward,” she told him, this time much quieter.

“I offered, didn’t I?” he asked, and she looked back to him briefly. He met her eyes but couldn’t hold her gaze and quickly looked back to her hair. He worked the conditioner through it for a silent minute before speaking to her again.

“How’s your hand?” Nacho asked her before his fingers left her hair, and she heard him wash them off in the bathwater behind her.

“Honestly?” she looked back to him, and he met her gaze briefly before he stood up and wiped his hand on one of the towels on the towel rack instead of the ones she had left on the closed toilet. “It hurts.”

“I figured that,” Nacho told her and seemed uncomfortable looking down on her in the bath; instead, he kept his eyes on the opposite side of the bathroom and out the open door. “Do you want something for it?”

“What, like Tylenol?” she asked, remembering him giving her Tylenol the last time she had spent the night at his place. “Sure.”

Nacho was quiet for a moment before he left her in the bathroom. Jade waited in the same position, expecting Nacho to return. A moment later, he did, and, avoiding looking at her still, he held his palm out to her with a small blue pill. Jade immediately recognized it and realized that it was not Tylenol he was offering her.

“I’ve never— I don’t know—” she started, looking form the oxy in Nacho’s hand to his face.

“You’ll be fine,” he chanced a quick glance at her before he looked away towards the bathroom sink. “It’s nothing like Adderall, and you haven’t been drinking.”

Jade trusted him, and took the pill with her injured hand, picking it up with her thumb and index finger before quickly placing it in her mouth and swallowing. “Thank you,” she told him after.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” he told her again, his eyes never meeting hers before he left the bathroom. This time, he closed the door behind him with a soft click. After, Jade forced herself to relax, letting her knees fall away from her chest, which caused the thinning bubbles to disperse around the tub. Jade briefly thought about staying in the bath a while longer, she wasn’t even pruning yet, but instead, she decided to pull the drain with her left hand. After, Jade stood up and reached for one of her towels. She dried her hair as best as she could with one hand while the bathwater drained from the tub before she stepped out and wrapped her second towel around herself.

Slowly, Jade worked on drying herself off and dressing in her underwear, and the same white teeshirt Nacho had let her wear the last time she slept over. After, she attempted to tackle combing her hair. Jade had wiped the condensation off the bathroom mirror and was watching herself struggle, both internally and externally. She had underestimated how hard doing everything was with her left hand, and she had underestimated just how nervous and giddy Nacho could make her. Then again, he did flat out tell her she was a spoiled brat only a few hours ago in that very same bathroom.

“You’re fine, it’s fine,” she mumbled to her reflection, slowly working the comb through her hair. Still, her words to herself didn’t seem to help. “You’re just friends, he’s worried…” she tried again and failed. Jade withdrew the comb from her hair, slapping it onto the counter as she stared at herself as if she was convinced she could calm herself down. “He’s just your friend. A good friend, that’s it. You’re friends.”

She wasn’t helping herself and was suddenly aware that she was literally talking to her reflection, and groaned. Jade turned around to face the bathroom door while she mentally chanted that she was fine and that she and Nacho were just friends. It took a minute of this before she finally gained the courage to leave the bathroom.

Jade flipped the light off in the bathroom and made her way out into the short hallway and then Nacho’s living room, finding him on his couch, bored and flipping through channels on his cable box. Jade figured she’d sit on her side of the sofa, and they’d watch TV again like that one morning after she had spent the night, but Nacho had his right arm up on the back of the couch, and it was almost too perfect. Quickly forgetting everything she had just told herself in the bathroom about them being just friends, Jade pushed herself forward and walked around the front of the couch. She passed her usual seat, moving between the sofa and the coffee table until she sat next to Nacho, directly next to Nacho. She didn’t say anything to him as her left side pressed into his right, and the channel flipping immediately stopped.

Jade avoided looking over at Nacho but could feel his eyes on her, and she wondered if possibly she was too bold. To try and keep herself looking indifferent and unassuming, she brought her legs onto the couch, bending her knees to keep them at her side. It was that moment when Jade felt Nacho’s arm, which had remained on the back of the couch, fall gently around her shoulders. If Jade wasn’t mistaken, she almost felt like Nacho was pulling the same stunt she was, trying to remain casual with him still shirtless, her only in one of his shirts, and his arm around her.

“So,” she decided to point out his sudden loss of interest in the television despite his cool act. “You’re a fan of Slap Chop, huh?”

“What?” Nacho’s question was immediate, and she looked over to him finally, finding his scarred eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Slap Chop,” she pointed at the television, briefly glancing at the infomercial guy ranting about chopping vegetables for a salad. Nacho’s dark eyes left her and switched to the TV for a brief moment before he realized what she was saying.

“Oh God,” he laughed uncomfortably at himself as he leaned his head back briefly, staring at the ceiling to compose himself. “Yeah. Yes, I’m a huge fan of Slap Chop…” he rose his head, looking back to Jade. Though he had started his sentence with absolute conviction, it was utterly lost the second “Slap Chop” left his lips, and he couldn’t help but laugh at himself.

“I’m personally more of a Quick Chop girl, myself,” Jade laughed as well, earning a confused look from Nacho, coupled with the smile leftover from his laughter.

“What?” he asked her.

“It’s the Billy Mays thing, same as that pretty much,” Jade pointed again at the television

“I hate that guy,” Nacho shook his head, looking back to the infomercial briefly.

“Really?” Jade faked a gasp.

“Yeah. That hand thing he does, like he’s constantly shoving his words at you,” Nacho laughed again. “This guy too. They all talk too loud and too much.”

“It’s so they can confuse the dumb and old people who buy all this crap,” Jade told him as if it were some unknown fact.

“So, you’d be disappointed if I told you I owned one?” Nacho questioned, and Jade quickly looked back to him.

“Wait, seriously?” she asked, wholly fooled until he laughed again.

“No,” he shook his head. “I’m an adult, I can chop my own vegetables.”

“You sound so sure of that,” Jade looked back to the television, before leaning her head back on Nacho’s arm. “Is that part of, like, adult initiation or something?”

“What?” Nacho asked before playing along. “Yeah. Chopping vegetables, paying bills, and folding fitted sheets.”

“Bullshit, you can fold fitted sheets. My mom can’t even fold fitted sheets,” Jade told him.

“Feel free to check,” she felt Nacho’s hand leave her shoulder for a moment so he could point to his hallway.

“You’re lying, you probably can’t even fold your regular sheets,” Jade smiled up at him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “The satin’s too slippery.”

“You know the first time you called them satin, I thought you were kidding,” he told her, maintaining their comfortable position with his arm around Jade while she laid half on top of him.

“They’re satin,” Jade told him, “How are they not satin?”

“They’re silk,” he corrected her, slightly raising his eyebrows in amusement.

Jade stared at him for a moment before another smile broke on her lips. “Bullshit, really?” she asked him, giggling. “They came out of spider butts?”

“Uh—” Nacho laughed himself, most likely at her instead of at the absurdity of the phrase “spider butts.” “Yeah, apparently they did. Supposed to be good for your face, keep you from getting wrinkles.”

“Nacho,” she shifted to face him instead of the television. “Nacho, if you believe that, you’ve been had harder than the people who bought Slap Chop.” He full out laughed at her at that point, and Jade lifted her head off his shoulder. “I’m serious! Silk doesn’t prevent wrinkles!”

“You know what I think?” he asked her, calming down enough to speak. “I think you’re high.”

She blinked a couple times before realizing that he was right, she must already be high off that OxyContin he gave her. “Yeah,” she agreed with him.

“How’s your hand?” he asked, and she looked to her bandages on her right hand.

“It’s fine, I can’t feel it anymore,” she met his eyes again. “But stop trying to distract me from your bullshit, age-defying sheets.”

“Fair enough,” he told her, before holding his arm out, expecting her to return to his side. Jade couldn’t help herself and returned to her previous position, resting her head on Nacho’s shoulder with his arm around hers.

“You should have taken one too,” she told him, staring at the new infomercial on the television but not really paying attention.

“That’s a horrible idea,” he responded. Still, Jade kept from looking up at him as she felt Nacho’s fingers idly tracing circles over her shoulder and arm.

“How come?”

“I’m starting to think you should have a responsible adult chaperone around whenever you drink or get high,” he told her honestly. Even so, she couldn’t stop smiling at him.

“Too bad there’s not one here now,” she teased him, again earning a chuckle.

“Nope. Just me,” Nacho falsely agreed with her, for her own amusement, before they both turned back to the television.

~-----~

Jade hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep until she woke up in the dark. There was nearly no sound besides the air conditioner blowing. She blinked the sleep away from her eyes before reaching up and immediately gasping. She had painfully bent her injured fingers before she could remember what had happened to them or that she could hardly move them. She also remembered that she was still at Nacho’s place. Even if she hadn’t, the satin sheets around her were a dead giveaway. Silk, Jade reminded herself, they were silk sheets. Jade looked around after her eyes had adjusted better to the dark and found that she was alone. Of course, Nacho wouldn’t actually let her sleep on his couch, and she figured that’s where he currently was with a tired sigh.

Jade sat up in his bed, immediately yawning after. She noticed his bedroom door was still cracked open, and the darkness outside led her to doubt Nacho was awake. She sat there a moment, despite being tired before she reached forward with her good hand and turned the lamp on beside Nacho’s bed. She winced from the light before yawning and sitting still another moment.

The last time she had sat on the edge of Nacho’s bed, he had insisted she stay the night because of that college party. She glanced at the bedroom door again, thinking that the last time she was drunk and upset. Now, despite what Tuco had done, Jade felt a thousand times better. She turned to face forward again, before looking down at the drawer of his nightstand. After a moment, Jade reached forward and pulled the drawer slightly open, expecting to find that box of condoms. Instead, she found an entirely different box of condoms, and it was practically empty.

“Jesus Christ, Nacho,” Jade sighed to herself, silently closing the drawer. She stood up afterward, trying not to mentally figure out how long ago the college party had been or wonder if this was the only new box of condoms.

Jade quietly walked out of Nacho’s bedroom and towards the living room. She stopped in his small hallway, already able to see that he was asleep on the couch, and leaned her shoulder against the wall, crossing her arms. There wasn’t anything she could do about it now, Jade figured, but just as she was deciding to turn around and go back to Nacho’s bedroom, she heard him speak.

“This is the second night in a row that you’ve woken me up early,” Nacho told her, his voice slightly raspy from sleep.

“That’s not fair, I didn’t even do anything,” Jade protested, her arms dropping from her chest. She kept her voice quiet despite not having to worry about waking anyone else up.

“Are you okay?” he ignored her statement, and she saw his head lift off his pillow to turn and get a better view of her.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered before remembering what he had said earlier about her never being ‘fine’ or ‘okay.’ “Just getting water,” she added quickly and made for his kitchen, suddenly nervous again. Both because she now had to rummage around in his kitchen to look for a cup and because she knew Nacho wouldn’t just pass back out until she was done.

“How’s your hand?” she heard Nacho ask after she had walked around the bar counter and into his small kitchen. She looked at the bandages around her fingers, figuring if she didn’t use her hand the cuts didn’t hurt too badly, but there was a dull throbbing regardless.

“Its doing better,” she told him after opening a couple of overhead cupboards with her left hand, looking for a glass. On her third try, she found a row of neatly placed coffee mugs, and Jade figured they would do. She grabbed the handle of one with her left hand before closing the cupboard door gently and turning towards his fridge.

“Do you need more Oxy?” he asked her as she pushed the rim of the mug against the water dispenser, only filling the cup about halfway.

“Um,” Jade took a second to take a drink, before turning around and leaning against the bar counter, looking into the living room to see Nacho sitting up on the couch now.

“You can say yes,” Nacho looked over to her from where he was now sitting on the couch.

“I’d rather not? Like… I’d take literally anything else besides a narcotic right now,” Jade told him honestly.

He remained quiet for a moment, examining her in the dark before he stood up.

“Nacho, seriously, I’m okay,” Jade tried telling him as he headed silently for the hallway in the dark apartment. She leaned over the bar counter slightly to watch him, her eyes on his bare back. Instead of entering his bedroom, she watched him turn right into his bathroom before the light was flipped on.

Jade leaned back, so she was standing straight, bringing the rim of the mug to her lips again. As she drank, she glanced at the digital clock on Nacho’s oven and realized it was nearly half-past five in the morning. Jade dropped her eyes to the mug then, turning it in her left hand. It was just a white ceramic mug, with odd gold detail. Frankly, Jade thought it was kind of ugly.

Hearing Nacho walking barefoot back to the kitchen, she looked up from the ugly mug to watch him walk around the bar counter. He turned the lights on in the kitchen before standing next to Jade.

“Here,” he told her, handing her a pill bottle, and Jade reluctantly held out her right hand for it, before realizing it was a simple Tylenol bottle.

“Thanks,” she said, before realizing the cap was childproof and near impossible to open with just her right hand while her left held the mug. Nacho seemed to understand this as well, and, as Jade looked back up to him, he reached for the bottle, opening it for her. He shook two of the white and red capsules out of it before handing them over to Jade instead.

“Thanks,” she said again, popping both into her mouth before drinking more of her water. Nacho watched her, a slightly amused look on his face and Jade furrowed her eyebrows. “What?” she asked, and Nacho’s smile only grew before he leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Who drinks water out of a mug?” he asked her teasingly, and Jade rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know where your glasses are. This is the first thing I found,” Jade defended herself. “Anyways, its kind of an ugly mug,” she added, attempting to tease him back.

“Its Versace.”

“What’s ver-sach-ee?” Jade immediately asked before attempting to drink the last of her water. It didn’t sound like Spanish, but then again, it didn’t really sound like any word she’d heard before.

“That’s a two hundred dollar mug,” Nacho clarified, his amused smile only growing wider.

Immediately Jade choked on the water she was drinking and continued to sputter as she shoved it at Nacho, afraid she was going to drop it. “Wh—what?” she asked him, trying to wipe the water off of her dripping chin. She had no doubt spit most of it out onto the white shirt she was wearing. “Who pays two hundred dollars for an ugly mug?”

Nacho openly laughed at her then, tossing the remaining water into his sink and setting the mug on his counter. “I paid for the name, not the mug,” he told her before pointing to a cabinet she had not opened. “Glasses are in here,” he showed her.

“Let me guess, they’re two hundred apiece also?” Jade rose an eyebrow at him, expecting him to correct her, and he did, just not how she expected.

“More like forty apiece,” he answered her honestly. “Crystal from Tiffany and co,” he added, and Jade shook her head, wondering if he told her purely for her reaction.

“And what, like, the bowls we ate cereal out of were some high-end thing too?” Jade asked him, only for Nacho to nod.

“Well, yeah.”

“You poor man,” Jade tsked. “You know Walmart’s exists, right? You can get all this shit for like thirty dollars, tops. They even have the fancy plastic stuff that doesn’t break.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry my dinnerware doesn’t meet your standards,” Nacho sarcastically told her. He closed the cupboard, housing the crystal glasses. “I’ll make sure I have some foam cups and paper plates for next time.”

“I wouldn’t be instantly terrified of dropping a foam cup, so thanks for that. That’s very thoughtful,” Jade laughed at him, trying to ignore the “next time” in his sentence. It wasn’t that she didn’t mind spending the night at Nacho’s place. It was just that the last time she had spent the night, she had barely escaped Dylan at the college party, and this time she nearly had her hand taken off by Tuco. What would constitute a “next time”?

“I’d offer to make you breakfast, but you honestly seem so offended by my kitchen,” Nacho brought her thoughts back to the present, and she met his eyes.

“You’re staying up?” she asked, suddenly feeling guilty for having somehow woken him up by just standing in his hallway.

“I was planning on going to work early anyway,” Nacho admitted before pushing himself off the counter. He flipped the kitchen lights on before making his way to the fridge. “You can stay here, or I can drop you off at home. I don’t care.”

“You’d come home to find all your dinnerware gone,” Jade told him, trying to sound serious, but when he glanced at her over his shoulder, she couldn’t help but smile.

“As long as you replace it with that fancy Walmart plastic,” he told her, pulling out a carton of eggs and some kind of ground, overly seasoned meat.

“You know I’m fine with more cookie crisp, right?” Jade asked him as he pulled the freezer door open next and grabbed out a bag of frozen French fries.

“Why? You don’t like eggs?” Nacho asked her, briefly looking back again with his scarred eyebrow raised.

“I like eggs,” Jade answered quickly with a nod before a small voice in her head told her that it was a stupid response. Despite having just joked with him about his expensive kitchen stuff, she was suddenly self-conscious around the half-dressed man making her breakfast. Nobody but her mom or her friend’s moms had ever made her breakfast before, and it seemed oddly… intimate. Especially with both of them having just woke up, him in low sweatpants and no shirt, and her wearing only one of his tee shirts. That’s not even mentioning him washing her hair the previous night. It was just that much beyond friendly, and that thought caused a warmth to bloom in Jade’s chest.

She took a steadying breath, willing that warmth to disappear before she leaned against the bar countertop in front of the fridge. It was then she noticed a piece of paper taped to the front. There wasn’t a magnet, but a literal strip of tape holding it in place. Jade furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, staring at the tape before looking slightly down to the colored piece of paper. On it was what seemed to be a yellow monochrome palm tree, blue and brown giraffe drinking from a purple lake, and orange sky with a red sun and pink fluffy clouds. She had to tilt her head to the side to even understand what the drawing was. After a moment, she realized that Nacho had taped it up sideways.

“I think I asked before, but do you have a kid?” she asked him, looking to Nacho from the drawing.

“No. A friend’s kid gave that to me,” he told her without so much as a glance. The thought of Nacho being around children made Jade smile. She took a step forward, towards the fridge, and the sound of her peeling the tape off the refrigerator with her left hand caught Nacho’s attention.

“You have it sideways,” she told him before he could even ask what she was doing.

“How can you tell?” he asked her instead, sounding genuinely curious.

“Sun and clouds go up, typically,” she teased, pointing them out. “Just cause the colors are all weird doesn’t mean gravity is weird. Kids don’t understand that yet. Also, do you seriously not have magnets?”

“I don’t own magnets. Obviously,” Nacho told Jade as he turned his oven on.

“Walmart also sells magnets,” she told him. Carefully, she started removing the tape from the picture as best as she could with her injured hand, before taping it back on the fridge in the same place.

“This Walmart place sounds too fancy for me, honestly. Maybe you should just do the shopping for me.”

“Oh yeah, totally. I’ll redesign your whole place. I’m down,” Jade smiled at him before she stepped back and hoisted herself up to sit on the bar counter opposite Nacho’s oven without much thought about her actions. He had managed to turn one of the stove burners and grab a pan and baking sheet from another cabinet before he noticed.

“What? Are these, like, one of a kind thousand dollar counters? Should I not be sitting on them?” she asked him, trying to keep her teasing tone.

“I think they’re epoxy?” Nacho answered her honestly before his eyes left hers. For a split second, they lowered to her bare thighs before he turned around again, and Jade felt that warmth in her chest creep upwards to her face. “And you can sit wherever you want,” he added, and Jade couldn’t stop her brain from immediately going there. She quickly shook the thought of where she could “sit.” Flirting with Nacho seemed to be a thousand times easier to do while drunk and texting instead of half-naked and two feet away from him. And that was if he was even intentionally flirting with her. Did people flirt by telling them they could sit anywhere? Did he mean to imply…?

Jade forced her mind away from that. Instead, she focused on Nacho as he shook out some of the frozen fries onto the baking sheet. “I know you have kid cereal, and I’ve seen you buy Pop-Tarts, but I never took you for the type of guy to eat fries for breakfast,” she stated.

“They’re going in the chorizo,” Nacho explained, only confusing Jade further.

“The who?” Jade asked him.

“Chorizo?” he rose both his eyebrows at her this time, thoroughly surprised as he pointed at the meat on the counter.

“Please don’t tell me that’s some expensive ass orange meat,” she sighed, trying to fake disapproval.

“No. It’s pork,” Nacho stated like it was blatantly apparent.

“I’ve never heard of chore—”

“Chorizo,” he corrected her before the full word was out of her mouth.

“Yeah, that. Never heard of it.”

“You’ve lived in New Mexico your whole life?” Nacho questioned her, the bag of frozen fries still in his hand. Jade nodded, and he continued with, “You know you’re really white, right?”

“Mhm,” Jade smiled as if she were proud. “But you know if I tried to spin that around and say you’re just really Mexican, I’d be a racist. Right?”

Nacho smiled back at her, a broad, genuine, and toothy smile. It even extended to the edge of his eyes, forming small, handsome crinkles. He kept the smile for a few moments as he shook more fries out of the bag before putting it back in the freezer.

“Do you wanna make coffee?” he asked her, and Jade, trying to recover from the sudden infestation of butterflies in her stomach, nodded. Nacho turned around and walked the two steps to his pantry, so he could open it and pull out a bag of coffee for her. “You do know how to make coffee?”

“Duh,” Jade accepted it, before she hopped off the bar counter with the coffee in her left hand. He handed her a filter after and she set both next to the coffee machine he had, before realizing that no, she didn’t know how to make coffee. There was always magically coffee pre-made in the mornings at her house, or she’d just go buy coffee at a gas station or fast food place. Quickly she glanced back at Nacho, finding him busy with searing the orange mystery meat in his pan on the stove. She took that time to desperately search the coffee bag for instructions before trying to figure out the coffee machine. The top of it flipped open, and on the underside, she at least found some pictures to go by.

“Need help?” she heard Nacho ask, and she quickly grabbed the glass pot before turning to walk to the sink next to the stove.

“Nope,” she answered, examining the small lines on the glass indicating the cups. “How much?” she asked before she started filling it with water. She looked to Nacho and realized he had the audacity to just shrug at her. “Seriously, how much?”

“How much do you want?” he asked her back, being difficult on purpose, and Jade quickly shut the water off before looking at the pot, it was about half full. Trying not to second guess everything she was doing, she walked back to the coffee maker. Jade continued following the vague pictures on the coffee machine. She poured the water in the right spot, replaced the pot on the heater, put the filter in, and even used the bag to figure out how much grounds to add. After, Jade found herself proud despite it being some menial task.

“Done,” she stated aloud before rolling the bag back up and walking it back to the pantry.

“Done?” he questioned, looking to the coffee maker and then to Jade.

“Yeah. It’s gotta brew first, but I’m done,” Jade explained the lack of coffee, or so she thought.

“Magically, it’s gonna brew?” he rose an eyebrow at her, and Jade suddenly found herself loathing his smart-ass tone.

“Why wouldn’t it?” she asked, crossing her arms defensively.

“You need to turn it on,” he told her, and Jade felt like smacking herself on the forehead. Of course, she would forget to turn the thing on. Quickly she walked over and did just that, pressing down on the switch, so a red light came on. “You could have just told me you didn’t know how to make coffee.”

“I know how to make coffee,” Jade kept her defensive tone.

“Didn’t seem like it,” he turned back to the pan on his stove.

“I know how to make coffee, Nacho. Did I fuck that up? I just forgot to turn it on,” she kept defending herself despite him being right, and the smile growing on his face told her that he knew that fact.

“No,” he answered shortly, prodding at the sizzling meat with a spatula. He glanced at Jade briefly before adding, “I just figured you wanted something to do, you looked bored.”

She took a second to think about that, wondering how whatever expression she had translated into bored. She was pretty sure she was blushing at some point even. She realized then, like unexpectedly running into a brick wall, that Nacho wasn’t flirting with her. Even worse, she already knew what he thought of her; she was just some spoiled brat. They could act like friends, and he could do her favors, but that was the bottom line. Nacho wasn’t flirting, he was just nice to her. He probably felt guilty for what happened with Tuco.

Jade looked away from him quickly, crossing her arms again, but this time it was a comforting gesture for herself. Like somehow, wrapping her arms over her self would shield her from the world while everything in her sank. The butterflies utterly died out, and the warmth ultimately left her chest. Despite everything that had happened last night, Nacho wasn’t flirting with her. Jade suddenly wondered if he had ever intentionally flirted with her? Didn’t calling her beautiful count? Was that just more sarcasm or snark?

“Jade?” she heard, and her brain snapped into overdrive.

“I’m gonna go get dressed— wait, what? Sorry?” she said, unsure why he said her name.

“…Okay,” Nacho replied simply after scanning her face.

“Okay,” Jade echoed him before quickly leaving the kitchen and making for his bedroom. Once she had shut herself inside, Jade literally smacked her forehead, a quiet “what the fuck?” leaving her lips. Why would Nacho flirt with her? He didn’t date, so what the hell was the point of flirting, and with her of all people? She didn’t know what Nacho’s type was, but she highly doubted she fit into that category. If anything, she probably fit into the “annoying little sister” category. That’d explain their bickering and his slightly overprotective nature with her. Shit, was Nacho even her type? She’d never gone after way older guys before, let alone jewelry wearing, macho, gangsters.

She leaned back against Nacho’s bedroom door, crossing her arms over his white teeshirt she was wearing. She was blowing things way out of proportion. She was into him, and somehow her brain was projecting that onto Nacho and back at her like he was a mirror. That had to be what it was.

Sadly, Jade glanced at her jean shorts and black teeshirt on top of Nacho’s dresser, her phone sitting quietly on top of them. Instead of getting dressed as she said, she grabbed her phone, hoping for a distraction from the shitty situation she cornered herself in. Immediately Jade realized she had a missed call from her dad and several “where are you?” texts from her mom, but nothing from her friends. Jade silently wondered if they were still partying at Jesse’s parents or if the party had finally died off. Briefly, she considered if she could tell Nacho to drop her off there instead of at her house. She didn’t exactly feel like getting high or drinking, though, so maybe confining herself to her bedroom with her Game Boy would be the better option. Jade sighed, tossing her phone onto Nacho’s bed before pulling his shirt over her head and getting dressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jade, honey, what the _fuck_. Guys don't just wash your hair and cook you breakfast because they think you're spoiled ☕ Anyway, this is a slow burn, so I'll let it slide 😉 Additionally, props to anyone who guesses who Nacho was calling in the first scene. We're getting so close to Season 2!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all like this massive 12k chapter of literally just Jade and Nacho. That bathtub scene was something I had written a year or so ago? Maybe around Christmas 2018. A Reylux (don't judge me) fic inspired it called A Dance With Titans. I read that scene with Hux and Rey, and I was like, "I want that." So I spawned the above scene with Nacho and Jade. It was literally before I ever even thought this would see the light of day, let alone my boyfriend's eyes. And, holy shit, was I surprised when he felt it was legit and believable 💕I hope you all liked it as well.
> 
> Also, I kind of skipped posting to the Nacho POV fic last week, if any of you were wondering what happened. It's the companion chapter to "The Less I Know the Better," and I realized just before posting that since Nacho's at a strip club, he should do strip club things... 😅 I'm still working on it, and I'm hoping to have it up next week. Thanks to the Coronavirus, my work is testing out a "work at home" system so I could be stuck in my house for a few weeks. If anything, that might mean I'll write more, but who knows.
> 
> Thanks to you all for reading this and leaving comments/kudos, and thanks to my boyfriend for beta reading. Stay safe and wash your hands, if not for me, do it for Nacho.
> 
> (PS Also the Lalo/Nacho ship is exploding right now and I... kind of like it? Do they have a slash name yet?)


	14. Curbstomp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the aftermath of Tuco's freak out in hindsight, Nacho is suddenly worried about Jade's safety. Meanwhile Jade starts wondering exactly how much more of the dealer life she can handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Meg Myers' song "Curbstomp" .
> 
> This chapter is roughly 30 novel pages in length and Grammarly estimates it will take about 54 and a half minutes to read. I was kind of squeamish about posting a chapter this long (bordering 14k words) but hey, what else is there to do right now? Practically everyone on the planet is stuck at home so... Grab a drink and enjoy 😊
> 
> As with the previous chapters, this chapter takes place after the events of season one of Better Call Saul, so potential spoilers are ahead for that season.
> 
> Any and all Spanish used is translated at the end of this chapter. As far as content warnings there's a bit of violence (fighting) and mentions of blood, without giving too much away. There's also a recountance of Jade's near-rape encounter from chapter five.

“Why?” she asked them again for probably the hundredth time, despite how much Nacho and Domingo reiterated precisely why they wanted her to start carrying a gun.

“Puta madre,” Domingo sighed, slumping back in his office chair before looking to Nacho as he ran a hand down his face.

“Because we told you. Do you accept that answer?” Nacho asked her, and Jade quickly shook her head.

“You told me it was the bench or a gun, and I chose the bench!” Jade argued. She was sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Domingo was opposite her on the other side of the desk. Nacho was leaning his shoulder on the wall near the large safe in the room.

“Situation’s changed,” Nacho sighed at her.

“What situation? There’s no fucking reason for me to have a gun,” Jade told them, crossing her arms. 

“There’s every reason for you to carry a gun,” Domingo argued before looking to Nacho for backup.

“It’s safer,” he agreed, and Jade made a point of dramatically rolling her eyes. She had an inkling of an idea why the guys were suddenly gung-ho about her having a gun while she was dealing, but it didn’t exactly make sense. Jade knew it had to do with what Tuco had done to her that Tuesday. Despite what had happened at El Michoacáno with Tuco, Nacho had still honored the deal he and Jade made over the phone and then some. Jade hadn’t dealt at all the past three days, and as far as she knew, Corey hadn’t either. Corey had text her a simple “Thanks” on Wednesday after Nacho dropped her off at her house, but that was it, and she had never responded.

Jade stayed silent, looking between Domingo and Nacho, realizing she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Jade wasn’t willing to budge on her position either. Before meeting Nacho, she had only ever seen a gun in real life a handful of times, and she had never held one, let alone shot one. All her experience with guns came from movies or video games. Jade hardly believed that using a gun could be as easy as playing Doom Two or Grand Theft Auto Three.

“Well?” Domingo pushed, further trapping Jade. She almost felt like a wild animal caught in a snare.

“No,” Jade said with a shake of her head. Finding it her only option, like a last resort, she quickly stood up and made for the door.

“Hey,” Nacho realized what she was doing and quickly pushed off the wall he was leaning on.

“Jade!” Domingo called after her as well, standing from his office chair.

Jade had made it to the door and opened it a third of the way before Nacho had caught it, stopping her from opening it further with his hand. Because he hadn’t grabbed onto Jade, however, she was still able to slip through the barely open door.

“Hey!” Nacho rose his voice as she sped walked towards the loading docks. “Jade, wait!”

“No!” she shouted back at him, only turning her head long enough for the word to leave her lips. They couldn’t argue about the subject of their conversation outside of the office while there were Tampico workers around. They probably had some idea something shady was going down, with how often Jade, Corey, and Joel came about. Still, Jade figured they didn’t care, or Domingo already had them in his pocket.

She sped up slightly before reaching the open loading docks. Jade wondered if Nacho would actually grab her and stop her. Either that or if he’d instead chase her to the loading dock and jump down before her. Then he’d be literally pinning her between himself and Domingo. When she reached the opening and the ledge that was four or five feet in the air, she realized that Carlos had picked up Corey and Joel and had brought them to Tampico. They were walking down the ramp of the dock she was heading to.

“Help me,” she said quickly to Joel and Corey, who was just getting to the dock, Carlos a few steps behind them.

“What?” Joel asked her, suddenly confused before looking to Corey. Corey had his eyes on something behind Jade before holding his hand up for her. She took it and practically flung herself off the ledge after at him, unsure of how close Nacho was.

“What the hell?” Carlos stopped, looking at Jade and then to Nacho, who was now standing where Jade had been a second before. “¿Que hizo ella?”

“Are you okay?” Corey tried asking Jade, but she was already moving up the loading ramp.

“Detenerla,” Nacho said, and she heard him quickly jump down from the ledge on his own. “Jade, wait up a second,” he added in English as Carlos promptly reached out and grabbed ahold of her arm.

“Let go,” she tugged, but his grip tightened painfully.

“What did you do?” Carlos asked her as she tried pulling herself free again, now literally caught in a snare.

“Carlos!” she yelled at him, still writhing in his grip, half a thought away from trying to smack or hit him.

“Hold up, calm down,” Nacho had caught up to her, stepping in her general path. Carlos let go of her then, when she was entirely trapped by himself, Nacho, and Domingo, who had come up her other side.

“Move,” she tried, deciding to try pushing past Nacho, but he stopped her, his hands on her shoulders.

“Jade, calm down,” he told her, only using enough force to keep her and himself in place.

“No!” she told him, hard-headed in her sudden panic. She didn’t even know where it was coming from or why it was there in the first place. She shoved Nacho’s hands off of her shoulders, finding him much more relenting than Carlos had been. Nacho held his hands to his side, where she had thrown them in a calming gesture. Jade took a deep breath in, locking her eyes on Nacho, and knew that she couldn’t get past the three of them. Instead, she took a step back towards Joel and Corey.

“What’s going on?” Joel asked from behind her, but Jade ignored him. She was locked in a staring contest with Nacho, who’s hands were now on his hips.

“She’s throwing a fit because she doesn’t want to carry a gun,” Domingo explained, his voice low, most likely due to the Tampico employees. They all so far had done an excellent job of not eavesdropping on the sudden whirlwind that was Jade and her shouting. 

“She doesn’t have a gun?” Corey spoke up quickly, his tone a mix of surprise and… disapproval?

“Why doesn’t she already have a gun?” Joel asked with much the same tone, and Jade finally turned around to face them.

“You have guns?” she asked, looking between them with her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Yeah,” Joel told her, a similar look of shock to Jade’s on his face. In a silent answer, Corey lifted the hem of his baggy shirt, revealing the waistbands of his boxers and his jeans, a handgun secured between them. Jade looked up from the gun to Corey’s face before giving Joel another quick glance and turning around to face Nacho. He had his scarred eyebrow raised at her, silently saying, “Look, even they have guns.”

“No,” she told him again, before switching her eyes to Domingo on her left and Carlos on her right. “No, I don’t need one— I’ve never needed one! Why do I need one now?”

“She’s never had one?” Joel asked, “Why not?”

“She doesn’t know how to use one, it’s pointless,” Corey spoke up, and Jade watched the three men’s eyes move to Corey.

“Exactly,” Jade took another blind step backward, finally finding some give in the situation she was stuck in. Her focus was back on Nacho now, watching his jaw muscles flex as he suddenly looked irritated. Jade wasn’t sure why Corey was suddenly taking her side, but it helped her out, at least. Maybe that’s also why she felt anxious? She didn’t want to be given something she’d more easily harm herself with than someone else? Perhaps she didn’t want to hurt anyone period?

“Can I talk to you?” Nacho asked her, still looking irritated, but his voice was softer like he was trying to calm her down the same way he’d calm Tuco down.

“No,” she told him quickly, and he was suddenly frowning at her, not expecting that response.

“C’mon,” Domingo spoke up from Jade’s left, and she watched him nod to the dock. Carlos, on her right, shook his head before waving the guys back. Joel and Corey looked hesitant, but complied with him, hoisting themselves up onto the loading dock before Domingo and Carlos followed. They were leaving her alone with Nacho, she didn’t have a choice, lest she tried walking away again. 

“What’s wrong?” Nacho asked, drawing Jade’s attention back to him.

“Seriously—?” Jade barely got her question out.

“You’re freaking out,” he stated, his hands still on his hips in front of her.

“No, I’m not, I just—”

“You’re freaking out,” Nacho stated again, and Jade forced herself to take another deep breath. She was, Jade realized. This was freaking her out. “What’s wrong?” he questioned.

“You know what’s wrong,” Jade shot back and crossed her arms.

“You stormed out of the office screaming—”

“I wasn’t screaming,” Jade interrupted him, her voice rising in volume.

“Yelling? Shouting?” he gave her more options, though neither was a better choice in Jade’s opinion. “All because you don’t want to pack heat?”

“Corey’s right,” Jade told him, “I’ve never used one, I’ve never even held one before. I’d do myself more harm carrying one than not,” she tried to explain.

“That’s the only thing that’s wrong?” Nacho asked her after a second, and Jade felt herself slip slowly into confusion. They were arguing about her having a gun while dealing, that’s what this whole mess was about. “Nothing else happened?”

He meant “nothing else happened after I dropped you off at your place Wednesday morning until when I picked you up less than an hour ago today?” Jade realized. She also knew the “nothing else” meant something terrible such as her having a bad trip on Adderall to her getting assaulted with a huge ass knife.

“No,” she answered him. It wasn’t a lie, not really. Nothing terrible like that had happened. In complete honesty, however, she still felt upset that Nacho wasn’t into her, and her crush was purely one-sided. Jade had convinced herself that it was her age, that there was no way he’d fall for a spoiled, bratty, nineteen-year-old, and that was probably because it was the only thing out of her control. If he didn’t like blondes, she could dye her hair; if she was too white, she could get a tan. Jade could start wearing more makeup, she could dress better (when she wasn’t dealing), and she could move out of her parent’s house at this point with all the cash she had saved up. The one thing she couldn’t control was her age. There was at least a decade separating them, if not more, and if she couldn’t make him like her because of that, why bother?

Despite her mild heartbreak, the only other thing could be that Jade ended up searching the Internet for hand and finger injuries on Thursday. Jade had to wait until her parents were at work, and her siblings were at a friend’s house. She was probably forcing a case of hypochondria onto herself. Still, Jade also had physical evidence of Tuco damaging her extensor tendons in her fingers. She couldn’t lay her hand flat or extend her middle and ring fingers anywhere close to straight, even without her bandages on. Jade had fought with herself to not go see a doctor after, but it was hard. Especially with all the grotesque photos of real corpse hand muscles and tendons, she had ended up scrolling through on several medical sites. It would have caused too many questions like “what happened?”, “who did this?”, and “why are you paying with cash?”.

“You sure?” Nacho prompted her, easily seeing those thoughts flying through her head.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she nodded, trying to sound convincing.

“How’s your hand?” Nacho asked her with the same tone as if he was able to pluck that worry from her brain and put it on display.

“It’s good,” Jade nodded while fighting the urge to hide her right hand behind her back when he looked down at it. She wished she had when Nacho’s own hands left his hips, and he held one out to her. She stepped forward, placing her right hand in his so he could inspect the bandages on her fingers.

“If you say anything about the Band-Aids, I’ll punch you,” Jade told him, trying to sound severe and hopefully distract him. She had to apply them herself using her non-dominant hand and her teeth, so they were nowhere near as neat and precise as what Nacho had done for her in his bathroom.

“With what hand? Your left or this mess?” Nacho quipped, glancing up at her from her hand as a smile spread on his lips.

“Ass,” she tried smiling back but knew they’d go right back to butting heads over her carrying a gun in a minute.

“Does it hurt?” he asked her, allowing Jade to retract her hand.

“Only if I think about it, so thanks for that,” she kept up her feistiness despite Nacho’s smile fading.

“Nothing else happened?” he asked, and Jade shook her head.

“No. Guess Tuco just really freaked me out,” she admitted, hoping he’d drop her odd mood swing. “Sorry,” she told him instead, watching Nacho’s shoulders fall loose.

“What if I show you how to shoot?” he asked her in another moment, and Jade realized they were already back to the gun topic.

“Probably not?” she shrugged at him. “I’m serious, I don’t need one. I’ve never needed one. You guys come and pick up all the cash, and I never have much shit on me. So what if I get jumped?” Jade questioned. “I could pay you back for whatever I lose.”

“You’d trust these skells not to stab or shoot you first?”

“They’re not— Nacho, they’re just people. I’m chill with almost all of them; we’re all good,” Jade told him, pointing off in the general direction of her bench though they weren’t even close to being able to see it.

“‘Almost all’?” Nacho asked her.

“I’m cool with all of them,” she stressed, “Some know me by name now, and some just want their shit before running off. No one is hostile or mean or, or, I dunno. We’re all chill with each other,” Jade tried explaining. 

Nacho inhaled after her answer, looking disappointed in her. “So your answer, no matter what I do, is a hard no?” Nacho asked her, and Jade wondered what “no matter what I do” meant. What else could he do besides show her how to shoot a gun?

“Right,” Jade confirmed, regardless.

“Jesus Christ,” Nacho sighed, a hand running over his head as he looked around them in the nearly abandoned loading dock area. Still, none of the Tampico employees seemed to be paying them any mind. “Will you tell me why?” he asked, turning back to Jade.

“What?” she asked, already feeling like it was obvious why she didn’t want a gun.

“It’s it because of what Corey said?” Nacho asked, continuing with, “Or is it something against gun violence? Or—”

“Nacho, please,” Jade sighed, already feeling exhausted from the argument.

“What if it’s not loaded?” he asked, and Jade shook her head with a shrug.

“I dunno. What’s the point of it not being loaded? It’s the same as not having one,” Jade stated, watching Nacho pull his own gun out from the back of his jeans.

“It’s a good bluff. If someone thinks they’re gonna get shot, they tend to cool off real quick,” Nacho told her, and the magazine slid out of the gun’s handle. He caught it with his left hand before sticking the gun itself under his arm and rhythmically ejecting the bullets into his right hand before pocketing them.

“Cool. Still don’t want it,” Jade crossed her arms, careful of the injuries on her right hand.

“Please?” Nacho asked her, shoving the magazine back into the handgun.

“Why, all of a sudden, do you want me to have a gun?” Jade tried a different angle. “Is there some gang war going on I don’t know about? Or a sudden shortage on crank?”

It took Nacho a moment to answer as he handed the empty gun to her. When she didn’t reach for it, he continued. “It’d make me feel better. Please?” he asked her again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘please’ this much,” Jade told him, still making no move to reach for the gun.

“Please?” he repeated a third time, smiling at her now.

“Seriously?” Jade dropped her arms to her side, remaining stubborn.

“Please?” Nacho took another step towards her, nearly shoving the handgun into her chest.

“Nacho—!”

“Please?” he persisted, despite Jade taking a step back from him.

“Fine,” she snatched the gun from him with her left hand. “There. Are you happy now? Jesus!”

“Only took you an hour,” Nacho laughed at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone as stubborn as you are.”

“Really?” Jade asked him, still awkwardly holding the gun in her left hand. “You’ve never looked in a mirror before?”

“Don’t believe in mirrors,” he kept smiling at her through his blatant lie.

“Whatever, fucking vampire,” Jade brushed off his statement. “So, what do I do with this?” she looked at the gun in her left hand. “I can’t just walk around, holding this, I’m assuming?”

“No,” Nacho shook his head, taking another step towards her. “Here,” he offered, taking the gun from her. Suddenly, before she realized it, Nacho’s arms were around her, and their chests were nearly pressed together as he showed her how to keep it in the back of her pants like he did. His cologne fogged Jade’s mind, and she fought the urge to both tense up and lean into him at the same time, instead of standing completely still. Only halfway through his motions did Nacho seem to realize what he was doing and the position they were in, and she felt a similar shift of emotion from him. Suddenly, Jade was worried that she had done something awkward. Before she could panic, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

“I swear to God if Domingo is already texting me,” Jade stated as Nacho stepped back from her. She forced herself to laugh as if nothing had just happened between them.

“Need a ride to your bench?” Nacho asked, clearing his throat beforehand.

“No, I’m… cool,” Jade had pulled her phone out of her pocket. Instead of Domingo texting her, Jade saw that the front screen read “One New Message From: Corey”.

“Uh, thank you, though,” Jade looked up from her phone to him, seeing him nod. She thought briefly to ask him when she’d see him for any drops or how long they planned on keeping her on her bench. With all her and Corey’s days off, she could already guess the answers; lots of drops and she’d probably be on the bench until sunup.

Once again, Nacho simply nodded as she flipped her phone open, walking past him.

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
whats up with your hand

Jade glanced back at the loading dock as she walked around the back of Tampico, thinking how uncomfortable it was to have a gun in the back of her jeans while she walked. She had turned in time to see Nacho hoisting himself up the ledge of the loading area and saw him disappear inside the Tampico warehouse. If Jade told Corey what truly happened, she knew he’d start something. Instead, she decided to play it way down.

To: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
just an accident its nothing 

From: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
k just looks bad  
Text: 2/2  
you take a gun 

To: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
yea nacho forced me to at least he took the bullets out

From: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
he gave you an empty gun  
Text: 2/2  
seriously

Jade rolled her eyes before looking either way on Menaul. She quickly J-walked across the boulevard, heading for the small side street her bench was down.

To: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
wasnt going to take a loaded one  
Text: 2/2  
ive never even needed one

It took Corey a minute to respond this time, and Jade was finally at her bench, trying to sit comfortably without moving the stupid gun from the back of her jeans.

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
want me to show you how to use one 

Jade typed out a response, but paused, “Nacho already offered” on her screen. They were talking again, at least, but telling Corey that might set him off like at Jesse’s party. Instead, she deleted her initial response and gave a vaguer answer.

To: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
maybe  
Text: 2/2  
who taught you

From: Corey  
Text: 1/1  
nodoze when he took me out the first night

Jade exhaled through her nose, frowning at her cell phone. Of course, No-Doze would have shown him. Gonzo probably did the same thing for Joel. At that moment, though she still felt slighted by Carlos dropping her off at a park for several hours, she was glad he hadn’t pulled a pistol out and told her she’d need to carry it around.

~-----~

From: Sunday  
Text:1/1  
Why is there a gun in the desk in the office

Jade sighed, looking around the quiet street. It was a typical weekend night of bench, with her phone in her hands, Dexter Holland singing through her headphones, and her pockets full of meth, pills, and cash. She was, however, sans a gun. That’s because she found a chance to shove it into a drawer in the desk back at Tampico Furniture. Nacho had been in a rush and didn’t stick around, so it was just her and Domingo. He, as always, was half preoccupied with Tampico business, so it wasn’t tricky leaving the gun there. She was honestly surprised he had found it.

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
dunno what you mean

Jade didn’t think it would work and was proved correct half a minute later.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/2  
Is this your gun  
Text: 2/2  
If Nacho finds out hes going to flip

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
then dont leave random guns laying around domingo :)

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/2  
Stop being a brat and just carry the gun  
Text: 2/2  
Next guy blue shirt backward hat 2 Oxy

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
ok

Domingo hadn’t text her back, so she checked the time on her phone, and counted the minutes until her next customer would arrive. Jade navigated back to her texts, bored and waiting for something to pop up on her screen. Nothing did, so she pulled up Nacho in her contacts.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
whens the next dropoff

As usual, she had to wait a couple minutes for a response. When he finally did, it was in his typical minimalist fashion.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
6

Jade wasn’t sure why she expected a more exciting answer from Nacho. Or more than one character in his text for that matter.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
ugh

Jade responded, and almost immediately, she got two more texts from Nacho. She rolled her blue eyes, thinking that the man text with the vocabulary of a caveman. He may as well just be grunting into his phone.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
Why  
Text:2/2  
You ok

Before responding, she rechecked the time, seeing that it was barely past four-thirty in the afternoon. Jade then looked up and down the street again. The next junkie still hadn’t shown up, his blue shirt and backward hat were nowhere to be seen. She was navigating back to her texts to question Domingo, knowing it only took four minutes to walk from Tampico to her bench. Before she could, Jade heard her CD player beep in the middle of Self Esteem. She knew what the sound meant, but she still looked at the small digital screen, which displayed track eight’s run time, and saw a flashing battery symbol. Instead of texting Domingo back, she alternatively text Nacho again.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/3  
come now  
Text: 2/3  
bring me more batteries  
Text: 3/3  
aa & coffee im bored

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Not dropping off next round

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/3  
:(  
Text: 2/3  
nooo  
Text: 3/3  
who is

Jade leaned back on the bench, wondering how long her CD player would last, or if she’d have enough time to run to the Circle K two blocks down between this customer and her next. Her phone interrupted her thoughts as it vibrated in her hand. She looked at the screen, expecting a reply from Nacho, but instead got one from Domingo.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
Guy is kinda weird

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
how come

Jade frowned as she responded to Domingo, but wasn’t bothered. Half the people she dealt to were “kinda weird.” Thinking little of it, she went back to her texts from Nacho, but he still hadn’t replied to her. Jade flipped her phone closed and left it resting on her lap, looking around for a guy in a blue shirt. She heard her CD player beep again near the beginning of Killboy Powerhead. Jade rechecked the small digital screen as if she was expecting anything other than the flashing battery symbol. She had maybe another ten minutes, possibly enough to finish the album.

In her lap, her phone vibrated, and she went to flip it open when she noticed a flash of blue sit down next to her.

“One sixty,” she said before she slid her headphones down to her neck. She figured there was no use in pausing the music and wasting the battery life on silence.

“You offered them to me once for one twenty,” she heard this guy say, his nearly forgotten voice crawling over her skin like tiny spiders. Jade whipped her head to her right towards the guy, only for her heart to jump into her throat. “Well, I gotta admit it took a long time to find you.”

“Uh...” was all she could muster in response, her body going tense as she laid her eyes upon Dylan.

“Dealing meth too, huh?” he asked her before looking up and down the deserted street. How suddenly vulnerable and alone she was with him left the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She had the immediate thought to just get up and run, but couldn’t figure out how to move. Her body was frozen in place. “Kinda low for you, I figured, but no other pill pushers knew about a blonde girl selling Oxy at college parties.”

“I think you should leave,” Jade answered him slowly, trying to pull herself out of the frightened stupor he forced her into.

“Meth’s cartel business, isn’t it?” he asked, ignoring her. “Wonder what they’d do if they found out you were dealing on their territory.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jade answered, confused before she realized that he must think she was dealing for someone besides the cartel. Jade’s body was slowly coming back to life, but Dylan was so close he’d probably grab her the second she tried to bolt. Instead, she kept her eyes locked on his face as she slid her phone out of her lap and to her side on the bench where he couldn’t see it. 

“You must have something figured out, I guess. Something that keeps you too busy to answer any calls or texts,” Dylan’s tone, though he was faking a pleasant conversation with her, slipped into something annoyed.

“I never gave you my number,” Jade stated, counting the button clicks on her phone. She pressed the home button, moved down three times, and then hit her home button again. Jade waited a second before pressing home a third time in hopes of opening up her texts and opening up her last message. Albeit an unread message, and she was unsure who had sent it.

“But we hit it off, right? No reason you wouldn’t want me to have your number,” Dylan shrugged. “No matter. I can get your new number now, and you can finally stop being rude and stop ignoring me. It’s like a fresh start,” he smiled at Jade, the same smile she had once found attractive. The same smile that had been roughly forced against her lips.

She couldn’t swallow, her tongue seemed to swell as she felt the phantom of his thigh pressing hard into her groin. In response, she squeezed her legs tightly shut. By her side, she was blindly navigating her keypad, trying to find the numbers 4,3,5, and 7 with her thumb.

“I told you to stop, I wasn’t ignoring you. I don’t want to talk to you,” Jade answered, wanting to look down on her phone to see if T9 had even spelled the word “help,” or if she was even texting someone in the first place. Instead, she found and pressed the send button before silently flipping her phone closed.

“You don’t mean that,” Dylan looked around again, and Jade was still aware of how alone they were. There was a reason Nacho and Domingo sat her on this bench, even cars were scarce on this side road. “Anyway, you can make it up to me. Dinner, maybe drinks. Or if you just wanna make it easy, we can head back to my place and pick up where we left off before you jumped out my fucking bathroom window.”

“I can’t, I’m working,” Jade answered him, and both heard and felt her phone vibrate on the bench next to her.

“You can ditch, this is hardly a job—” he stated, smiling as if what she said was funny.

“I don’t want to,” she told him flatly, trying to sound forceful as she cut him off like Nacho and that one tweaker had told her (Jade had later learned his name was Sonny). She hoped he would back off. Instead, he lost the calmness from his face altogether.

“You don’t have to be such a bitch about it. You fuckin’ owe me,” he told her, raising his voice slightly. Jade tried not to recoil and again heard her phone vibrate on the bench next to her.

“I owe you? What the hell do I owe you?” Jade asked him, again thinking of trying to bolt. If she could get to Menaul Boulevard, at least, there’d be a lot more witnesses to anything that went down.

“How about some respect for one? And more Ketamine from what you spilled, or the fifty I spent on it,” he started, before Jade’s phone began vibrating steadily, signaling a call. She finally looked down, seeing the front screen read “Incoming Call From: Cheesy Chips.”

“I have to—” Jade started, flipping her phone open and pressing the answer button before it was anywhere close to her ear.

“No, you don’t,” Dylan stopped her, quickly reaching for her phone. He snatched it out of her hand, before tossing it onto the sidewalk behind them. The sudden rush from him startled Jade out of her seat, and she stood up quickly, her CD player falling out of her lap and landing hard in the road before them. The Offspring CD that was inside popped out and skidded down the asphalt a few feet. “You don’t even have time to answer my calls.” He stood up, and Jade backed herself into a no-parking sign near her bench, jumping when her back hit the post. Dylan followed her, stopping only a foot or two away. From where he had thrown her phone on the sidewalk, they could both hear it vibrating again.

“You must be so popular to be able to just blow people off like that,” he added when Jade stayed silent. With a quick decision, saying fuck it to her phone and CD player, Jade spun around the sign and tried to run. She didn’t get a step in before Dylan had grabbed her and forced her back. Jade ended up pinned between him and the tagged up building behind her bench.

He twisted her arm roughly behind her back and pressed hard against her, forcing her face against the filthy bricks. “How hard is it just to be nice?” Dylan asked her. “You women are all so fucking mean. Like it’s programmed into you or something. I’m trying to be reasonable here and let you make it up to me, and you try running away?”

Jade stayed still, afraid of what he’d do if she fought him. On the ground, her phone was constantly ringing, she couldn’t hear it pause between one call to the next and decided that Sonny’s and Nacho’s way of dealing with creeps wouldn’t work for her. Jade could only hope that Nacho or someone else was coming to rescue her. Until then, she’d do whatever Dylan wanted her to do. It wasn’t like she could lock herself in a bathroom this time.

“Fine,” she answered him, squeezing her eyes shut to keep from crying. “There’s cash in my back pockets. Crystal and OxyContin in my front, take what you want.”

“We’re kinda passed that, sweetheart,” Dylan whispered, hot breath hitting her neck. It made her recoil further into the brick wall, goosebumps raising over her skin.

“Then what?” she asked, a mix of anger and desperation present in her voice. “You want me to buy you booze? I can’t, I’m nineteen.”

“Well passed that too,” he continued, and Jade didn’t want to say anything more. She didn’t even want to ask him “what” because she already knew what he wanted.

Luckily for her, Jade didn’t have to say anything more to Dylan as a loud engine, mixed with screeching tires, approached.

“The fuck?” Dylan moved away from Jade, releasing her arm. The screeching ended just behind them, and Jade spun around, holding her aching arm to her chest as she faced Nacho’s van. The engine was still running as Nacho got out, leaving the driver side door open.

Jade would have felt relief were it not for the look on Nacho’s face; it was a level of fury she had only ever seen once from Tuco when he had lost his shit and sliced her hand open.

“Dude, what the fuck? You’re gonna kill someone driving like that! What’s your problem?” Dylan tried to start an argument, and Nacho looked from him back to Jade.

“Is this the guy?” Nacho asked, pointing at Dylan but kept his eyes on her. Jade was frozen again, with her back against the wall. She was fighting her mind to try and get words out.

“Who the fuck is this?” Dylan turned around and asked her. It was enough to snap Jade out of her stupor.

“Uh-huh,” she nodded, eyes still on Nacho.

“What?” Dylan asked her, taking a step backward as Nacho turned to face him.

“You stupid motherfucker,” Nacho seethed, and it was the first time Jade had outwardly heard him cuss. “I told you to keep away.”

Jade stayed with her back against the wall, fearing her knees may give out otherwise, and watched Dylan back further away from Nacho, who was following him. They both passed Jade’s cell phone on the sidewalk, which was still vibrating. 

Instead of moving to answer it, Jade watched Dylan turn and try to run, only to see Carlos’ Firebird speeding down the opposite side of the street. He pulled up onto the sidewalk and blocked Dylan’s path before he and Arturo jumped out. Nacho seized the opportunity to grab onto Dylan’s shoulder and spin him into a mean right hook that dropped him to the ground.

Jade only watched Nacho throw one more punch before she turned around, wobbling a few steps away when she heard Dylan start screaming. With a hand over her mouth, she watched Domingo round the corner of the street on foot in his Tampico Furniture uniform. He had the pistol Jade had stashed in the office in one hand and his phone up to his ear.

“What’s going on?” he jogged up to Jade, pocketing his phone but keeping his gun in his hand. Jade only answered with a shake of her head, her vision blurred by tears. Behind her, she could hear Nacho, Carlos, and Arturo threatening Dylan in Spanish while he coughed and screamed something that sounded like “Please.”

“Are you okay?” Domingo asked, looking between Jade and the violence behind her. Again she shook her head before stumbling into Domingo’s chest with a sob. Something behind her snapped, causing her to gag and throw her right hand over her mouth, her left was tightly clutching onto Domingo’s Tampico shirt. She didn’t want to know what had made the sound.

“N—Nacho...? Hey,” Domingo called out. He seemed thrown off by the terrified embrace Jade had caught him in, but he kept her arms around her regardless. Around them, it was suddenly quiet except for Dylan’s soft groans and labored breathing.

“Jade,” Nacho seemed to ignore him. She opened her eyes to look up at Domingo, her hand falling away from her mouth. Slowly, Jade turned her head, but at the first sight of blood on the concrete, her eyes snapped shut. Jade turned around again, hiding as best as she could in Domingo’s shirt.

“Jade, give me some meth,” Nacho asked of her. He was breathing heavily, but his voice was calm compared to what it was before. She dropped her hand from her mouth, and tried to pull a baggie out of her pocket, but ended up pulling several out and they all fell to the ground.

Both she and Domingo dropped immediately to try and pick them up, but Nacho was already there.

“¿Por qué tienes su arma?” Nacho hissed at Domingo, and suddenly he was at a loss for words. Jade herself was shaking too badly to pick up any of the baggies before Nacho had gathered them all.

“Yo ... Ella lo dejó en Tampico en el escritorio,” Domingo stammered as Nacho stood back up, baggies in his bloodied fist. Domingo rose as well, but Jade couldn’t get her legs to pull her back up. She avoided following Nacho with her eyes, and instead looked up to Domingo, only to see him handing her back the gun she had secretly stashed at Tampico.

“Wh—what?” she kicked away from him and ended up on the road in front of the open driver side door of Nacho’s van. Her immediate thought was that they wanted her to shoot Dylan.

“This is why you need to keep a gun on you,” Domingo insisted like he was trying to sound serious, but Jade only shook her head.

“No!” she answered him feverishly, refusing to take the pistol. She didn’t want to shoot anyone, she didn’t even want to hold the gun, especially not right now.

To her right, she could hear Dylan gagging and Arturo, yelling, “Eat it!”

“Domingo,” Nacho called, and Jade chanced a look in his direction, only to see him tossing a wad of cash into the blood pouring from Dylan on the ground. At the same time, Carlos threw the baggies on top. He even opened one up and poured it onto Dylan’s blue shirt “Take her down the road to a payphone and call 911, drug deal gone bad. I’ll meet you in a minute.”

“Huh?” Jade questioned, looking back to Domingo, who was now offering to help her up, finally shoving the pistol into his own waistband.

“C’mon,” he grabbed onto her hands gently, taking special care with her injured right hand, and pulled her off the ground. “Get in the van.” Jade did as she was told, getting into the driver’s seat before crawling over the center console, letting Domingo get in after her. Jade didn’t chance another look as they drove off, down to the Circle K that she had wanted to run to ten minutes ago. Domingo parked in front of the payphones before cutting the engine and getting out.

Jade hesitated in the van, watching Domingo stand by one of the phone’s, waiting for her. She opened the door and got out on shaking legs, holding onto the side of the van until she stepped up onto the concrete sidewalk.

“Tell them you saw a fight, okay?” Domingo told her.

Jade reached the phone and pulled it off the hook, holding it to her ear. “Say, uh... Say there’s a guy on the ground, and the others fled.” He dialed 911 for her, and Jade listened to the ringing in her ear.

“Don’t say your name, don’t mention anyone else,” Domingo added as the operator picked up.

“911,” the operator’s curt voice caught her off guard.

“Uh... There’s uh...” Jade stammered, eyes wide as she stared at Domingo.

“Fight,” he mouthed to her.

“Hello?” the operator asked.

“There was a fight. There’s a guy, I mean there were a few but...” she was crying again.

“Sorry, you said there was a fight?” the operator asked.

“They were beating this guy up, he’s bleeding,” she took a deep breath in, remembering that snap she heard. Jade wondered what Nacho had broken, Dylan’s arm, his leg?

“Where are you?” the operator asked, “Can you give me an address?”

“It’s uh... He’s near Phoenix and, uh... Phoenix...” she couldn’t remember the street name, her mind was filled with Dylan’s blood and screams.

Domingo whispered the street name, and Jade answered. “He’s at Phoenix and Tennessee.”

“Phoenix and Tennessee?” the operator clarified. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

“I’m at, uh...” Jade watched Domingo shake his head. “They all left, but he’s bleeding on the ground. I’m too scared to go up to him.”

The operator sighed, “What side of the intersection is he on? North? East?”

“He’s, uh,” Jade at to look up to find the sun, wiping tears from her cheeks. She was always shit with directions. The sun was dipping to her left, meaning Dylan was on the south side of the intersection. “South,” she answered shortly. The operator began to ask another question when Domingo disconnected the call with the metal lever.

“Good,” he said, his hand extended for the receiver, and she handed it to him. “You okay?” he asked her again, wiping any prints off of the phone with his Tampico Furniture shirt before hanging it back on its hook.

Jade nodded, her arms tightly crossed over her chest before they both caught Nacho walking up the street. “Now what, Nacho?” Domingo called out to him.

Nacho waited a moment before he was closer to respond to what Domingo asked. “I’m gonna take her home. I’ll drop you off at work?”

“What?” Jade spoke up, finding it hard to get the image of an enraged Nacho out of her mind. She figured she shouldn’t be shocked. She couldn’t exactly go back to dealing on her bench with Dylan there and an ambulance on the way.

“Get in the van,” Nacho answered her shortly as Domingo tossed him the keys.

“I’ll take the back,” Domingo told her, pointing her to the passenger seat.

Jade didn’t argue. Her home was about as safe as she could get at the moment, so going home was fine with her.

The drive was silent, with Jade staring at her hands in her lap and Nacho driving with an intense concentration. Domingo was utterly silent in the back of the van, and Jade didn’t want to look back to him and see what he was doing. Like Nacho had said, they dropped Domingo off at Tampico first.

“Thanks, Nacho,” Domingo got out of the van. Nacho had pulled up to the front of the store instead of the loading docks in the back.

“I’ll call you in an hour,” Nacho told Domingo as he walked up to the driver’s side window. Jade didn’t bother looking up from her lap. She realized that she didn’t want to be alone with Nacho. Jade felt like she was in trouble, and Domingo was keeping her from getting yelled at, or worse.

“Okay,” Domingo agreed before making his way to the front doors, and Nacho drove off. They had to drive twenty minutes across town to get to Jade’s neighborhood, and it was done in silence. Jade’s eyes remained downcast, afraid that any second Nacho would snap on her. She knew he was pissed about the gun, but what if he thought Dylan showing up was somehow her fault? What if he blamed her for the wasted meth and cash?

At the stoplight, before they would turn into her neighborhood, she chanced a look over at him, intending to look at his face and try to read his expression. Instead, they landed on the bloodied knuckles of his right hand as he gripped the steering wheel. She felt her chest tighten as she wondered how hard he must have been punching Dylan.

Her eyes flew back to her lap when Nacho shifted in his seat. He didn’t say anything to her when the light turned green, and he didn’t say anything in the few minutes it took to pull up to her house. She chanced a glance at the clock on Nacho’s dash before he turned off his engine. Jade figured, since it was Sunday, that both her parents would be home, but couldn’t say the same for Charlie or Elle.

She saw Nacho move towards her out of the corner of her eye, and her body tensed. When she looked, however, she saw that he was handing over her cell phone. When she took it, he reached passed her and opened his glove box, revealing her house keys and wallet. It was only then she realized that she had lost her CD player.

“Um...” she cleared her throat as she dug out the money and remaining OxyContin pills from her pockets, replacing her wallet and keys with them in the glove box. She had no more meth baggies. “I, uh... I lost—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Nacho answered her shortly. Finally, Jade’s blue eyes fell on his face, and to her surprise, he didn’t look angry. He seemed remorseful, possibly worried. “Stay here, don’t go out.”

She almost asked him why, but instead just nodded her head. She turned to the door, unbuckling her seat belt as she did before Nacho asked her, “Jade, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she got out of the van as she answered, but Nacho wasn’t satisfied with her quick answer like Domingo had been.

“Did he—”

“I’m fine, Nacho,” she snapped at him. It felt like an accident, but then again, she couldn’t fathom accidentally using that tone with anyone.

In the silence that followed, Jade forced herself to lock eyes with him. “I’m fine,” she lied again and knew that Nacho didn’t believe her. Jade didn’t wait for him to respond. Instead, she half slammed the door to the van before turning and walking away, down the perpendicular street towards her house.

~-----~

“Honey?” Jade heard, drawing her from a hazy sleep.

“Huh?” she grunted back, realizing her eyes stung too much to try and open. Instead, Jade buried her head further into her pillows.

“Diana, hun, dinner is ready,” she heard her mom open her bedroom door and peek in. Though she hadn’t opened her eyes, Jade could tell her room was dark. Even despite this, she heard her mother sigh at the mess held within.

“Not hungry,” Jade groaned back at her mom.

“This is the first time you’ve been home for dinner in weeks. Are you feeling alright?”

At first, Jade was going to deny it and say she just wasn’t hungry, but playing sick seemed like a better answer. “No. I’m trying to sleep it off.”

“What’s wrong?” her mom asked, her voice slightly more evident than before. Jade wondered if she had actually come into her room or if she was still standing at the door. She didn’t raise her head to check.

“I just feel sick. I don’t want food,” Jade responded, an air of annoyance added to her voice.

“Nothing’s going on? Diana, we hardly see you—”

“I’m just sick, mom,” Jade finally rose her head and half turned her body. She found her mom standing half in the hall and half in her room. “I’ll eat with you tomorrow,” she added, speaking to her mother’s silhouette from the hallway light, in contrast to her dark bedroom.

It took a moment, but her mom finally responded with, “Alright. If you feel worse, tell us so we can take you to a doctor.”

“Okay,” Jade sighed, dropping back onto her stomach.

“Goodnight, honey,” her mom added before closing Jade’s door with a soft click.

She hadn’t meant to pass out initially. When she got home, she went straight to her room and shut herself in to cry in bed. Sometime in the past two hours, she must have passed out. Jade groggily glanced at the alarm clock next to her bed, reading half-past seven. She stared at the red numbers for a few minutes, watching them slowly change, indifferent to how Jade felt. When she realized that she’d rather be asleep than awake with her memories of that afternoon, Jade let her sore eyes drift closed. Before sleep could fully retake her, however, Jade heard her phone buzz with a new text.

From her pillows, Jade’s eyes half opened, finding her phone on her nightstand next to the alarm clock. She was terrified that it would start continuously buzzing like her old phone would when Dylan was bothering her. Instead, it was a single buzz, and the brevity, though she doubted it was him, made her think instead of Nacho. Jade reached forward and grabbed the phone. Instead of Cheesy Chips, she saw the name Sunday on the front screen. Flipping her phone open, Jade selected the new text.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
Hey is everything okay with you

Of course, he’d be worried, Jade figured. She’d practically clung to him like a frightened three-year-old. After a few seconds, Jade decided to respond simply with another lie.

To: Sunday  
Text:1/1  
yep

She flipped her phone closed and was reaching to set it back on the nightstand when it buzzed again. Jade paused before looking at the screen. “New Message From: Sunday” is what she saw. Jade brought the phone back towards her, before turning onto her side and flipping the phone open again.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
Whats up with you and that guy

Of course he’d have to ask about “that guy.” Unconsciously, she recalled that snap she had heard and felt her stomach twist with nausea. While thinking up another simple lie, and leaning towards a brief “nothing,” she received another text, but this time it was from Carlos.

From: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
Im so sorry chica I got your back from now okay?

“What?” Jade verbally asked his text.

To: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
why r u sorry

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
hes just some crazy asshole i met

After responding to both Domingo and Carlos, Jade stared at her phone. She wondered if they’d both text her back again, or if she’d get any more texts, specifically from Nacho. Despite her mild nausea, she felt a twang of guilt for how she had snapped at him a few hours earlier.

Jade flipped her phone open when it buzzed again, but as soon as she did, she received two more texts.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
I had no idea who he was Im sorry

From: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
I wont ditch you anymore. If you need me Ill come get you.

From: Ponytail  
Text: 1/1  
Hey chica are you doin okay

Jade stared at the three texts form Domingo, Carlos, and now Arturo. She thought about Nacho and braced herself for a fourth text, but it never came. Instead, she started responding to the rest of the guys.

To: Ponytail  
Text: 1/1  
im doin alright sorry bout earlier

To: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
thx carlos

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
wheres nacho

She rolled onto her back at that point, still staring at her phone while waiting for Domingo to respond.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
Hes sitting here

Jade, chewing on her bottom lip, tried to figure out where “here” could be. Tampico maybe? Were all the guys together right now? Instead of asking Domingo, she asked Carlos.

To: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
hey are you with nacho

From: Beard  
Text: 1/1  
Yeah why

Why wasn’t he texting her then? Jade didn’t answer Carlos but instead started texting Arturo. She assumed Arturo was with them, it’d make sense with all three of them messaging her at once.

To: Ponytail  
Text: 1/1  
where are you guys

From: Ponytail  
Text: 1/2  
The hospital with your stalker  
Text: 2/2  
We got this don't worry

Jade immediately sat up in bed with his response. They were at the hospital with Dylan?

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
what are you guys doing at the hospital

She text Domingo instead. Jade felt like she’d get a more honest answer out of him versus Arturo and Carlos. They’d probably give her vague “macho” type answers or tell her not to worry about it.

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
Everythings okay, don’t worry about Dylan.

To: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
what is nacho doing

Jade was disappointed when Domingo didn’t answer her as she thought. Despite that, she wanted to know why Nacho wasn’t texting her as well. She even went as far as pulling up his contact and starting a new text before deciding against that action. Remembering how she had snapped at him, Jade wondered if Nacho even wanted to talk to her.

Minutes crept by, and Jade wondered why Domingo wasn’t responding to her now. Her short conversations with Carlos and Arturo had also abruptly stopped, even though she hadn’t exactly left them open-ended.

She dropped her phone into her lap before pressing the heels of her palms into her aching eyes. Jade couldn’t come up with an explanation of why they were at the hospital with Dylan, and the mere thought of her stalker made her want to scream. She should have ignored them all, Jade realized. She should have just kept sleeping. She was awake now, however, and wasn’t sure if she could pass out again, especially since she had to cry herself to sleep in the first place.

In frustration, Jade brought her hands away from her eyes, vision blurry in the dark bedroom, before she flipped her phone shut. She practically threw it back onto her nightstand before pulling the covers over her head and laying back down. If she couldn’t fall back asleep, at least she could pretend.

~-----~

Jade stayed lulled between sleep and reality until her parents had gone to bed, and the house was quiet. After, Jade crawled out of her bed and into a hot shower. She once again used the water to sterilize and wash away any trace of Dylan from her body. Jade was only repeating what she had after getting home from that Hellish college party and meeting Tuco.

When she got out of the shower, the clock in the bathroom read twelve-thirty. She stared at the hands, idly towel drying her hair before sighing and wrapping it up instead. She then worked on reapplying the band-aids to her fingers on her right hand. With a week and a half of healing, the cuts didn’t look as terrible or hurt as badly. They probably didn’t even need the bandages any longer. Still, Jade preferred to keep the reminder of Tuco’s volatile sanity hidden.

After, Jade wrapped another towel around her body and grabbed up the day’s clothes before walking them to the washer and dryer in the garage. On her way back to her bedroom, Jade noticed a blue glow from underneath Charlie’s door, signaling he was the only one still awake beside her.

Jade quietly crept past and closed her bedroom door behind her, hoping he wouldn’t bother her or even notice she was awake before she flipped the light on in her bedroom. She barely had time to throw her towel off and sit on her bed before she heard a tapping on her window. She jumped, sucking in a startled breath before staring at her curtains.

“Jade?” she could hear faintly from the other side, and her name, coming from Nacho’s voice, forced her out of her shock. Jade took a second to glance at her phone, where she had left it since earlier that evening. She had never bothered to check it when she got up to go shower.

Jade moved to her dresser quickly and pulled out the biggest shirt she owned, which happened to be her ex’s hole filled Alice in Chains tee. Suddenly she was waving away thoughts about what Corey was up to. Jade pulled it over her head before peeking out from the curtains and finding Nacho on the other side of the glass. She quickly slid the window open to greet him.

“Uh, hey,” she said, both confused and relieved at the sight of him. She was half worried that after how she left him earlier in the day that she wouldn’t see him again for a while, if ever.

“Got something for you,” he held up a brown paper bag, but his eyes wandered to the towel on her head and a smirk formed on his face.

Jade suddenly remembered the towel wrapped around her hair, and she quickly knocked it off. “Front door,” she pointed before dropping the curtain in place. She picked the towel up off the ground and tossed it on her bed with her other one. In a rush, Jade started rifling through her drawers for her old green and blue school gym shorts, a painted and flaking white and green ram displayed on the left leg.

After pulling them on, she ran her fingers through her still wet hair, soaking the shoulders and back of the band shirt she had on. Doing so, Jade crept through her house and to the front door. When she unlocked and opened the door, she found Nacho waiting for her.

“What is it?” she asked, glancing at the bag in his hand before standing aside, expecting him to enter; however, Nacho looked hesitant. “Wanna come in?” she asked him, and he stepped forward silently. She closed the door behind Nacho while watching as he surveyed her dark living room.

“I didn’t take you for someone to shower at midnight,” his eyes were again on her hair, that she was still combing with her fingers.

“Were you out there long?” Jade asked, dropping her hand from her damp hair.

“Ten minutes,” Nacho shrugged.

“Well, thanks for not, like, breaking in and waiting in my room,” she told him, thinking that could have been disastrous. Even if she recognized Nacho and didn’t immediately scream, she still would have been practically naked.

“Typically breaking into girl’s rooms and waiting doesn’t end well,” Nacho told her, and Jade smiled, realizing he had just read her mind.

“C’mon,” she pointed at the hallway behind him. “Let’s go to my room. My brother is still up, and I don’t feel like answering a thousand questions about who you are.”

Nacho simply nodded and allowed Jade to lead him down the hallway to her room. She closed the door once Nacho was inside, before leaning her back against it. “What’d you bring?” she asked him, motioning to the paper bag in his hand.

Nacho, standing in the middle of her room, simply handed her the brown paper bag, and she unrolled the top so she could look inside. Her mouth fell open upon seeing the first item in the bag, and she pulled it out, holding it up to show him with her expression.

“Guy at the CD shop said that was the right one,” Nacho looked worried for a moment before Jade quietly laughed in astonishment. 

“You bought me another Smash?” she asked, looking at the Offspring album in her hand, the same one she had lost. “Track three on my old CD always used to skip, this is awesome! And you got me another CD player? Seriously?” she looked in the bag, pulling it out as well. They weren’t the only items in the bag, but Jade still handed it back to Nacho. He silently refused it, keeping his hands in his  
leather jacket’s pockets.

Her smile faded from her face, trying to shove the bag at him after setting her CD and CD player on her bed. “I don’t know what that cash is for, and I don’t want the gun.”

“It’s your share, and you need the gun,” Nacho insisted, taking a step back.

“‘My share’? You’ve been giving me five hundred a day,” Jade said, lowering her arm. “That’s like... I don’t even know how much.”

“Two grand,” Nacho told her.

“Why?” Jade asked, almost forgetting her parents were asleep across the hall.

“Incentive,” Nacho answered her simply.

“For what?” Jade asked, with the same tone, only softer.

“To keep dealing for me— for us. For Domingo,” Nacho explained. “It helps him out.”

“Him, or you?” Jade asked him, noticing his quick change of words. It was always “for Domingo,” but Jade knew better.

“It helps us both out,” Nacho answered after a moment, shifting his weight between his feet. Jade knew he only said that so he didn’t have to admit to her helping him specifically.

“I still don’t know how to use a gun,” she switched the subject from the cash to the handgun.

“I can show you. Next day off I have, maybe this Friday?” Nacho shrugged.

“You get days off?” Jade asked, relenting. She set the bag on her bed with her other new things.

“Not really, but I’ll make it happen.”

“How come you’re so persistent on me needing a gun?” she asked, crossing her arms as if trying to shield herself from the answer.

“Because next time, I might not already be on my way to you. Next time, I might be across town, or in Mexico,” Nacho stressed, his hands leaving his pockets to emphasize his words.

“Domingo got there almost as fast as you did,” Jade pointed out.

“You didn’t text Domingo,” Nacho insisted.

“I didn’t know who I was texting. I wasn’t looking,” Jade confessed, and it only seemed to distress him further. She could only imagine what he must have thought when he saw that “help” text.

“What happens next time when you can’t text anyone?” Nacho insisted.

“You keep saying ‘next time,’” Jade said, “Why is there going to be the next time?”

“It’s inevitable in this business...” Nacho told her, but she could see it in his eyes that he understood what she meant. To her surprise, he looked hurt. After today, Jade wasn’t sure if she could deal again. Everything had a risk; he had told her that once, and Jade didn’t seem able to avoid them anymore. With a sigh and a glance around her room, he licked his lips before continuing.

“Your stalker is in the hospital. When he’s stable, they’re taking him to jail for possession, possibly with the intent to sell. My lawyer says he can get up to eighteen months regardless for a first-time offense,” Nacho explained, but Jade only felt her unease grow.

“Dylan knows who I am. If he talks—”

“He won’t.”

“If he talks—” Jade tried again.

“He’s not going to say a thing. He understands what will happen if he does,” Nacho reassured her. “He’s done with you. He knows who’s watching, and if he comes looking for you when he gets out, he knows the cartel will be after him.”

“Is that why you were at the hospital with him?” Jade questioned, thinking back to her texts between Domingo, Arturo, and Carlos.

Nacho seemed to chew on his response for a moment. “I had to know. I couldn’t risk him finding some loophole and getting out of custody in a day or a week—”

“Thank you,” Jade cut him off this time, swallowing the lump that formed in her throat.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Nacho told her before sighing and looking around her room. “I need to ask you something, though,” his eyes landed back on her, and Jade felt a chill run through her.

“What?” she tried sounding indifferent.

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked her after a brief silence, and Jade’s eyebrows furrowed.

“That’s your question?” she asked, figuring there had to be something else.

“It’s one of them, yeah,” he answered.

Jade looked at her bedroom door, hoping her parents were still asleep and hadn’t heard them yet. “I’m fine—”

“Don’t say you’re fine,” Nacho interrupted her automatic response. She looked back to Nacho as he patiently waited for another answer.

“I’m... I dunno,” Jade sighed, moving to sit on the edge of her bed. “I cried and slept most the day. I just woke up to shower. I’m coping.” Jade was about as honest as she could be with her answer, but Nacho still looked tense. Jade could barely read his expression. “What else?” she prompted him.

“What happened?” he asked her, and Jade felt like his eyes were burning straight through her.

She tried ignoring the feeling so she could answer. “Not much… He uh, he grabbed my phone from me when I answered your call, then he grabbed me and pushed me against a wall when I tried to run. You literally showed up two seconds after that.” Jade’s heart was pounding as she explained, flashes of her experience popping into her head. Her eyes had begun to sting, and she took a deep breath, not wanting to repeat her night spent crying.

“Not… Not today,” Nacho tried to clarify, but Jade didn’t understand what he meant by “what happened” if he didn’t mean that afternoon on her bench with Dylan.

“What do you mean ‘not today’?” she asked him to explain, but suddenly understood. He wanted to know what happened at the party. “I mean— You know what happened already, I told you,” Jade told Nacho, unsure of why she suddenly felt defensive. Her heart was still beating against her ribs.

“Tell me again,” Nacho responded simply, and Jade crossed her arms over the band shirt she was wearing.

Jade tried not to scoff as she broke eye contact with him, looking around the floor of her bedroom. “He poured something into a cup and gave the cup to a girl, and I pretended to spill it, then asked what he put in it... Why?” Jade met his eyes again and realized he wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

“That’s the first time you met him?” Nacho asked her instead of answering her question.

“What?” Jade asked, her stomach twisting uncomfortably. Nacho didn’t look or sound angry, but she still felt like she was in trouble. “N-no, I met him earlier. He tried bumming Oxy off me then tried trading it for pot, and then he tried asking me on a date. I blew him off and thought that was that.”

Nacho let her words sink in before prompting, “What happened after you spilled the drink?”

“Why?” Jade stressed back, wanting an answer. She didn’t understand why it was relevant.

Nacho didn’t look like he’d answer her. He didn’t even look like he wanted her to answer his question. If she wasn’t mistaken, this was as close to uneasy as she’d ever seen Nacho.

“He never gave you cash?” he asked instead.

“What?” Jade almost laughed. If it weren’t for the situation, she would have. “No, I told you he tried trading the pills for kush.”

“You didn’t take any money from him?” Nacho rephrased his question.

“What are you talking about?” she asked him instead, before realizing that Dylan must have told him something. “Did you talk to him?”

The air around them was growing thicker, and Jade didn’t quite know what to expect. She didn’t even know how she was feeling at the moment.

“Yeah,” he answered her after what felt like an eternity of staring.

Jade realized her heart was pounding, she could practically hear it in her ears. There was no way Dylan told Nacho what had happened that night, and she had no idea what he meant when he asked her about taking Dylan’s money.

“He grabbed my arms, and he pushed me upstairs, and then he pushed me against a wall and made me kiss him, and he had his hands on my wrists, and his thigh was between my legs, and I couldn’t breathe, and he was fucking pushing into me, and I had to lie and tell him I had to pee, so he dragged me to his room, and I locked myself in his bathroom and— What the fuck Nacho?! Will you stop standing there like I’m in goddamn trouble and sit the fuck down?!”

The words came pouring out of Jade’s mouth faster than she could stop them, coming up from her lungs like word vomit. She was shaking and crying again and had forgotten that it was past midnight, and her parents were across the hallway asleep. Nacho looked just as unsettled as she was, pale even from her unhinged explanation, and only blinked at her last request. Jade, while Nacho looked frozen in place, pushed herself back on her mattress until her back hit the wall. She then pulled her knees to her chest, breaking eye contact to wipe her cheeks.

When her eyes left him, Nacho seemed to regain motor functions and silently complied with Jade. Nacho stepped forward before turning around, sitting at the edge of her bed, next to where she had been. They were quiet after, Jade slowly composing herself while Nacho leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his eyes locked on his hands. She didn’t feel like he was going to speak, so Jade cleared her throat when she felt like she could talk again.

“I text you when I was in his bathroom, then I crawled out his window and onto the roof. When I tried climbing down, I fell, and that’s why my back hurt the day after. I never saw Dylan again until today, so I don’t know why you’re asking if I took money from him,” she explained in a more rational voice.

Jade watch the back of Nacho’s head as he nodded, and it took another few seconds for him to ask another question. “How’d Dylan get your number?”

“I’m not sure. He said he took it?” Jade answered. “He, uh... I handed him my drink and phone when he was asking me out so I could deal with some junkie who was throwing cash at me. I guess that’s when he took it?”

“You gave him your drink?” Nacho asked, looking back to her as if she had said something disturbing.

“For a minute,” Jade shrunk under his gaze.

“You’re lucky he went for your phone and not the date rape drugs in his pocket,” Nacho told her with a heavy sigh. “So he never... uh,” Nacho added, unable to bring himself to say the words.

“I never slept with him,” Jade conferred, finding that she couldn’t say them either.

Nacho’s whole demeanor shifted, and he seemed to relax with her confession. Jade watched him turn forward and run a hand over his face before sighing in relief.

“I never said he did,” Jade said, realizing that Nacho must have thought that this whole time. That might have been why he was so nice to her after. It could be the entire reason they were even friendly with each other, and that realization stabbed harshly at her heart. Nacho only did everything he had because he felt guilty thinking he had gotten her raped.

“That’s my fault, I assumed it— Hey?” Nacho looked back at her and must have seen that hurt on her expression.

“What?” she suddenly tried acting indifferent, though she could hardly get over how stupid she felt. The only time Nacho ever went out of his way for her was when something awful happened. That thought alone made the half-healed cuts on her right hand ache.

“Come here,” he reached back for her as Jade felt more tears welling in her eyes and spilling onto her cheeks before she could stop them. She almost told him she was fine again, but Nacho seemed all but immune to that lie now.

Instead of answering verbally, she placed her hands on the mattress next to herself and pushed forward so she could sit next to Nacho. The hand he was reaching out with settled on her waist, his arm around her back. Despite her realization, Jade only felt natural leaning against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, but Jade didn’t look up at his face, she only stared at the curtain over her window.

“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” Jade told him after taking in a deep breath. “You don’t have to.”

“For making you explain all that. For being an idiot and thinking that cabrón was telling me the truth.” She felt Nacho shrug and briefly wondered what Dylan might have told him, before realizing that she didn’t want to know. She shouldn’t care.

“How come you didn’t text me at the hospital?” Jade asked him instead, sniffing.

“You weren’t busy texting Domingo, and Carlos, and Arturo already?” Nacho asked her in response.

“No. I was waiting for you to text me,” Jade actually smiled despite knowing that flirting with Nacho would lead absolutely nowhere.

“You’re really trying to cement the fact that I’m an idiot, aren’t you?” Nacho said, and Jade finally lifted her head off his shoulder to look at him.

“How?”

“By telling me that I was sat in a room with three guys that you were texting and waiting on me to text you instead,” he explained.

Jade wasn’t exactly sure what to think, so she decided to just run with it. “Yeah. It’s okay, I forgive you.”

“Ouch,” he faked a wince and leaned slightly away from her, despite his hand still settled on her waist. It made Jade laugh, at least, and in response, Nacho smiled.

“Don’t worry. It’s not the worst thing you’ve done.”

“Of course not,” he added sarcastically. “Just don’t make me think you’ve slept with any more random creeps,” Nacho insisted after, but this time he sounded genuine.

“What’s it to you who I sleep with?” Jade asked quickly, trying to sound offended but smiled again at the quirk of Nacho’s eyebrow.

He sighed. “I’d greatly appreciate it if I didn’t have to knock some guy’s teeth out every other week.”

She wanted to ask if he was serious or if he was genuinely jealous but decided against it. That would venture too far out of the comfortably flirty conversation they were having. “Says the guy who doesn’t date and probably sleeps with a new chick every day,” is what she chose to go with instead.

“Every day?” Nacho repeated, his eyebrows both raising this time. “I’m not sure if I should feel offended or if I should thank you for thinking I have that much time and stamina.”

“Offended, definitely.”

“Coming from the girl who’s dated half her high school? Don’t think I can feel offended,” Nacho shook his head.

“I didn’t! Nacho, I didn’t date half my high school,” Jade insisted, thinking back to when he had picked her up from that IHOP and unfortunately met her friends. “Are you ever gonna drop that?”

“Are you ever gonna drop the fact I told you I didn’t date?” Nacho shot back.

Laughing, Jade shook her head. “No, probably not.”

“Cool,” Nacho ran his free hand down his face to feign mild distress before his eyes landed on her alarm clock. “That time’s not right, is it?” he asked instead of just checking his watch since his hand was still on her waist.

“It is. Why?” Jade asked, seeing that it was already past one in the morning.

“Work,” Nacho sighed, before finally removing his hand from her waist and standing up.

“Seriously, what do you do besides being a... druglord?” Jade asked him, keeping her smile despite not knowing exactly what to call Nacho.

“Druglord,” Nacho nodded, falsely approving her choice of words. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever tell you.”

“Whatever,” Jade sighed. “I’d let you spend the night, but my bed’s nowhere near as awesome or big as yours. Also, I don’t want you to have to beat up my dad.”

“I appreciate it,” Nacho said, and Jade stood from her bed as well. She went to open her door before she peeked into the hallway. Jade was about to lead him out when she noticed Charlie’s bedroom door was open, and the bathroom light was on.

“Wait,” she backed into her room, closing the door and quickly turning the light off to her room. “Don’t want my brother asking me to play Mortal Kombat,” she explained and listened, waiting for Charlie to walk back into his bedroom.

“You never struck me as the type to play video games. It’s still surprising,” Nacho whispered, closer now as he had expected to leave her room.

“You should get a Playstation, and I’ll play you,” Jade looked back to him in the dark, making him out as nothing more but a shadow. In the hall, she heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open, followed by Charlie’s heavy footsteps. His door squeaked before closing, and Jade looked back to Nacho again after a moment.

“Should be good now,” she opened her door, and with her brain on autopilot, having done this with Corey and her other boyfriends before, Jade grabbed onto Nacho’s hand. She didn’t register the movement until it was too late, and her brain was already screaming “fuck” repeatedly. She couldn’t let go of him, because it would only cement the fact that it was an accident. Jade forced herself to pull Nacho along, down her hallway, and to the front door like she had meant to hold his hand.

By that time, Jade realized that not only was she holding his hand, but Nacho was letting her, whether he genuinely wasn’t fazed, or if he was doing the same as she was and playing it cool. Regardless of his reasoning, Jade was thankful for the excuse to let go of his hand to unlock the front door and let him out.

“So, I... Um... Thanks for the uh... The...” _goddamn it, fuck, shit_. Jade couldn’t look at him, her heart was racing, and she would bet everything her face was as red as a tomato. She took a deep breath in, willing the burn in her cheeks to cease, and tried again. “Thanks again for everything.”

“No problem,” Nacho stepped out her front door and spun around, his hands once more in his jacket pockets. “You still want to do Friday?” he confirmed with her.

“Sure. Friday,” she nodded, a little too enthusiastically.

Nacho hesitated with his next question, “Do you want me to stay out here tonight?” he nodded back to his van, parked in the alley facing her room.

“Um, no— I mean I’ll be okay, it’s fine. You don’t have to,” the words spilled out of Jade’s mouth too quickly.

“Okay. If uh, if you need anything, call me,” Nacho offered.

“Thanks,” she nodded, feeling the palms of her hands go sweaty, so she grabbed onto the cold door handle with one and resisted wiping the other off on her shorts.

Nacho looked back to his van before his dark eyes fell on her again in the doorway, and for a split second, she thought she could see the man before her struggling as she was. “Goodnight, Jade,” he said with a resolute calmness that proved her wrong.

“Goodnight, Nacho,” she responded and watched him turn and walk down the path to the sidewalk. Before he reached the sidewalk, Jade shut and locked her front door, before watching him cross the street, becoming a dark blur through the peephole.

“What the fuck was that, Jade? Shit. What are you, twelve?” she muttered to herself, watching Nacho’s blur make his way to the van and out of her sight.

“Who was that?” she heard and immediately jumped. Jade turned, noticing her mom now standing at the junction of the kitchen entrance and hallway.

“Fuck, mom, holy shit,” Jade swallowed her heart, since it had jumped into her throat, and leaned back against the front door.

“Who was that?” she asked again before walking over to a lamp and turning it on.

“He’s just,” Jade sighed, before starting over. “It’s not what you think. He’s just a friend, he was dropping something off for me.”

“What was he dropping off that’s so important at one in the morning?” her mom asked, crossing her arms over her robe.

“Uh, I left my CD player in his car. He works nights, swung by on his lunch...” Jade quickly lied but wasn’t sure her mother bought it.

“Uh-huh. Are you feeling better, at least?”

“Um, yeah. Just had to sleep it off, I guess?” Jade shrugged her back still against the front door.

“Will you eat now? I made chicken enchiladas. I’ll heat them up for you?”

At least her mom dropped the subject. If she had been in school still, she might have exploded on Jade instead. Grateful for that, Jade nodded. “Yeah, sure. Are you staying up?” Jade asked.

“Having trouble sleeping. That’s the bad part about staying in bed all day. C’mon, I’ve barely seen you in the past few weeks,” her mom nodded towards the kitchen, and Jade followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Puta madre.” — (stated in exasperation and not directed at Jade) Holy Shit.
> 
> “¿Que hizo ella?” — What did she do?
> 
> “Detenerla.” — Stop her. (Boyfriend said there was a better translation for this, but then never gave it to me 🤷♀️)
> 
> “¿Por qué tienes su arma?” — Why do you have her gun?
> 
> “Yo ... Ella lo dejó en Tampico en el escritorio.” — I... She left it at Tampico in the desk.
> 
> Cabrón - “Dumbass”, according to Google. More like “Fucker” according to my boyfriend.
> 
> Well holy shit, right? Who saw _that_ coming? 😂 This was for anyone who thought that Nacho snapping phone in half to stop Dylan was a cop-out. Also, the second scene was literally the very first thing I ever wrote for this fic. Hell, that was like two years ago, almost exactly. That was back when I just had an itch for Nacho fic and there were literally like three Nacho/oc stories that existed anywhere.
> 
> There's also two allusions to Nacho POV scenes in this that I haven't written/posted yet, one where Nacho meets her friends and one with him at the hospital. What can I say? I'm having too much fun writing him getting a lap dance 😅 Everything else is actually on hold right now so I can get the next chapter fully written out. I'm hoping to have it up in the same two week time frame, so around Easter.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all like this one and thanks to everyone who's already left comments and kudos! And huge thanks to my boyfriend for literally beta reading this monster in one sitting last night. Please stay safe and, if possible, stay home💕.


	15. National Anthem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade learns a new skill thanks to Nacho. Despite his best intentions, she still gets burned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Lana Del Rey's song "National Anthem".
> 
> This chapter is about 17 novel pages. Grammarly estimates it will take about 30 and a half minutes to read.
> 
> As with the previous chapters, this chapter takes place between season one and two of Better Call Saul. Potential spoilers are ahead.
> 
> No Spanish dialog is in this chapter 😊 No real content warnings either, but my boyfriend did forget that Jade had a little sister. So, yeah, Jade has a little sister if you also forgot. I know it's been a hot minute since she was mentioned.

They had never decided on a time. Thursday night, Jade had tried to fall asleep at a reasonable time. Regardless, she ended up tossing and turning in bed for roughly five hours with anticipation of seeing Nacho again, as odd as that was. Jade was crushing on him hard and only seemed to be leading herself on. She told herself that she was reading too far into signals and only projecting her coquettish nature onto Nacho.

By the time Jade had finally fallen asleep, she had only managed to get in about three hours before her phone woke her up. At first, she was sleepy enough to not register that it was Nacho calling her, despite reading his name on the screen of her phone. “Huh?” she asked, still laying on her stomach with her face half-buried in her blonde hair and pillow.

“Did I wake you up?” she heard his voice on the other end, and it made her snap up in bed.

“What? No, I’ve been up,” she lied, clearing her throat so she could rid most of the sleep from her voice.

“Good,” Nacho responded, whether he believed her or not. Jade glanced at her clock, showing just past seven-thirty before she got out of her bed and checked outside for Nacho’s van. “I wanted to let you know I’m not gonna make it as early as I hoped.”

“Are you canceling?” she asked, trying not to sound disappointed as she dropped her curtain and turned back for her bed. At least she wouldn’t have to rush out of the house in five minutes.

“No, just won’t be able to get to you until two.”

“Oh, okay,” she sighed in relief, pulling the phone away from her ear as she rubbed at her face. “That’s fine.”

“We’re going into the desert, so wear jeans and shoes.”

“Um, okay. Should I be worried?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re driving me out to the desert,” Jade stated and heard him chuckle on the other end.

“No. Be ready at two.”

“Okay, thanks for the heads up,” she responded before they hung up. With a yawn, Jade tossed her phone onto her bed before setting her alarm for the next several hours and crawled back into bed.

~-----~

The next time she woke up was to a cacophony of beeps and banging on her bedroom door.

“Jade!”

“What?” she huffed, once again on her stomach with her face buried in pillows. The banging and beeping didn’t cease with her laying there, so Jade rolled over and smacked her alarm clock a few times. 

“Jade!” she could hear her sister more clearly as her alarm turned off, and she checked the time. It was half-past noon; she had slept through her alarm for over half an hour.

“What?” she yelled louder and forced her legs out of her bed, her feet hitting her room’s carpet.

“Wake up!” her sister banged on her bedroom door again. Slowly, Jade pulled herself to her feet and shuffled to her bedroom door. “You’ve been sleeping through the alarm. Why are you waking up so late?” Elle crossed her arms with a huff.

“Because I can. What do you want?” Jade yawned, smoothing her long hair back from her face.

“Charlie kept yelling at you from his room. It’s interrupting the TV,” she rolled her eyes and walked away. Jade rose her eyebrow at the eleven-year-old, watching her return to the living room. 

“You know there’s a volume button, right?” she called after her sister. Jade yawned before she made her way to her brother’s room, knocking on the door.

“What?!” he yelled over the video game he was playing, Need for Speed by the sound of the music playing.

“Do you want food?” she asked through the door, leaning against the door frame and rubbing at her eyes.

“Sure,” he responded flatly.

“Elle, want food?” she called to the living room, too lazy to walk the three steps forward.

“Okay,” her sister shouted back.

Jade stayed by her brother’s door for a moment before returning to her bedroom to retrieve her phone. She found it buried in the covers of her bed, but it had no new notifications. She brought her phone with her to the kitchen, just in case.

Jade stared at the contents of the fridge for an obscenely long time before moving on to the pantry. Jade finally settled on two boxes of off-brand macaroni and cheese, despite her disappointment in it not being Kraft. She wondered briefly if it even made a difference on the grocery receipt or if her parents were just stingy.

Waiting for the water to boil, she rechecked her phone, though she knew no one had text her. She thought about texting Nacho herself but had no reason to do so other than wanting to.

So Jade set her phone down and continued making the macaroni before dividing it three ways. She served Charlie in his room first before balancing her own and Elle’s bowls, as well as her cell phone, in her arms, and joining her little sister watching cartoons in the living room.

Jade couldn’t keep her eyes off of her phone, it seemed, checking the time about every thirty seconds. By the time one thirty finally rolled around, she made her way back to the kitchen with the dishes before heading to the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. Jade even managed to do a decent job applying mascara and eyeliner (though she was afraid of looking overdone) before heading to her room to get dressed. She wore a pair of jeans that actually fit and a pair of Adidas, as Nacho had suggested. She threw on a basic gray ribbed tank top and followed up with an old, worn, blue, and brown flannel button up from her grunge days in high school.

Satisfied with her outfit, and thinking she should tie her hair back, Jade heard her phone chime. Hastily, she picked it up and flipped it open, revealing a text from Nacho.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
10 minutes. Don’t forget your gun.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
i wont

In reality, Jade had almost forgotten. She moved to her bed. Bending low to pull out an old shoebox she had stolen from Charlie’s room, and set it on the mattress. Stuffed inside was the fruit of her drug-dealing, nearly ten thousand dollars in twenties and fifties. Underneath the disorganized pile of cash was the handgun Nacho had given her. She carefully pulled it out of the box, before hiding away the money.

The pistol couldn’t fit in her pockets, and she wasn’t about to shove it into the waistband of her pants like Nacho had. Jade didn’t even know if it was loaded or how to check. She thought of asking Nacho, but at the risk of sounding dumb, Jade stayed silent. She looked around her room, knowing she didn’t own a purse or anything to stow the gun in, so she shrugged off her flannel shirt and folded it, tucking the weapon between the fabric.

Jade rechecked her phone, and Nacho hadn’t responded to her. Stuffing the phone in the front pocket of her jeans, she grabbed her house keys and wallet and shoved them in her other front and back pocket, respectively. She then grabbed the flannel shirt from her bed and left her room.

Her first stop was at Charlie’s bedroom, knocking before yelling, “I’m leaving, don’t be dumb.”

“Okay!” Charlie shouted from the other side, and Jade moved on to the living room, towards the home phone, where her parents kept a pen and pad of paper.

“Hey, kiddo,” Jade quickly scribbled her new phone number down before turning to look at her sister. “I’m headed out.”

“I heard,” Elle didn’t bother looking away from the TV.

“I wrote my new number down on the pad in case you need it if anything happens. Make Charlie help you if something happens, and don’t answer the door,” Jade instructed her.

“You have a new number? Since when?” Elle asked her, blue eyes finally meeting blue eyes.

“Yeah, lost my old phone a month ago,” Jade sat on the couch next to her, deciding to text Nacho, before he arrived.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
hey can you pick me up in the usual spot  
Text: 2/2  
i dont want my sister seeing me get into your shady van

“So, are you disappearing again for another month?” Elle asked her as Jade flipped her phone closed.

“What?” Jade looked to her sister, “I never disappeared.”

“The only time you came home was to sleep practically,” Elle stated, turning back to the television. “Besides last week, you haven’t even eaten dinner with us for, like, a month.”

Jade was going to argue, or bring up some points to disprove her, but realized that since Nacho had snapped her old phone in half, she really hadn’t been at home all that much. She was either hanging out with her friends or dealing on her bench. Before she could think of anything to say to her little sister, Nacho text her back.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/2  
I’m there  
Text: 2/2  
My van is shady?

Jade decided not to say anything to Elle after reading Nacho’s texts. Instead, she bit her lip, contemplating Nacho’s second text before responding as simple and as vague as possible.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
;)

“I’m out,” she stood up, stuffing her phone back in her pocket before grabbing up the gun folded in her shirt.

“Whatever. Don’t like, get hit by a bus or something,” Elle was once again too preoccupied with the television to look at her big sister.

“Gee, thanks,” Jade found it funny regardless and made her way out the front door, locking it behind her. She probably didn’t have to worry about where Nacho was picking her up but didn’t mind the short walk. When she rounded the corner where Nacho said he was waiting, she found his van parked and the back doors open.

He was in the middle of throwing one black and gray shirt off, so he could pull on another short-sleeved, all-black button up. Jade stopped in her tracks, being caught off guard by Nacho changing his shirt and was not so secretly checking him out. In doing so, she noticed he was wearing black Dickies work pants, and he was missing his usual crocodile skin boots. Instead, Nacho had on some more practical monochrome Chuck Taylors.

“Hey,” she cleared her throat, determined not to feel as awkward as she had several nights ago.

Nacho glanced over at her, buttoning up his shirt over a black tank top as he turned around. Jade noticed then that he was also missing his watch, chains, and earring. “Hey,” he replied, and she moved closer, standing at the back of the van with him. She glanced at the shirt he had thrown off, seeing his name sewn onto the front breast, Ignacio.

“Wait, you’re seriously just getting off work?” Jade asked him.

“Yeah,” he answered, before closing the two back doors of his van.

“I didn’t think you were ever serious when you said you had a real job,” Jade couldn’t help but smile, wondering what he could possibly do. The uniform looked like he might be some sort of mechanic, but he wasn’t covered in oil or grime. “Is it like an ends-meet type thing or...?”

Nacho rose his scarred eyebrow at her, “Its just work for my father.”

“Oh, neat,” Jade kept her smile.

“What’s that?” Nacho nodded to the plaid shirt in her hands before she could question him further.

“It’s what you asked me to bring,” Jade confessed, holding the shirt out to him. “I didn’t know where to put it.”

Nacho glanced around the street before taking the shirt and unfolding the gun from the fabric. He checked it quickly before stowing the weapon in the back of his waistband. Jade took the chance to shrug on the flannel shirt and roll up the sleeves to her elbows.

“Let’s go,” he closed the back doors of his van and walked her to the passenger door, opening it for her. Waiting for her as she opened the door, there was a gallon of water and a bottle of sunscreen.

“Are we gonna be out there all day?” Jade looked to Nacho, who was waiting for her to sit down before closing the door. 

“It’s hot, and you’re really white,” he explained as she moved the items so she could sit down.

“Gee, thanks,” Jade set the water and sunscreen into her lap as he shut the door, and she caught a glimpse of Nacho’s smile as he walked around the front of the van to the driver’s seat. She hid her own smile from him and used the mirror on the sun visor to apply sunscreen to her nose, cheeks, and collarbone, before applying some to her forearms. It didn’t take long for Nacho to get on the highway from Jade’s neighborhood. After a near-silent fifteen-minute drive, they were leaving Albuquerque behind.

~-----~

“I shouldn’t be worried, right?” Jade asked Nacho a second time that day. She turned to him after the passing buildings faded into infinite cactus, and they ended up on a sun bleached two-lane highway far outside Albuquerque. After getting in his van, the pair had been quiet. Jade was used to it, Nacho barely ever spoke while driving (or just in general) unless she initiated a conversation.

“Shootings easy. It takes one mag to get the hang of it,” Nacho reassured her, keeping his eyes on the road before them.

“Oh, good… But I meant in the sense that a member of the cartel is driving me out into the middle of nowhere with a gun in his waistband,” Jade rose an eyebrow at him as he shot her a quick glance.

“Do you see a shovel back there?” he answered her after a moment, some unknown emotion washing briefly over his face. He looked uncomfortable for just a split second, as Jade mentioned the cartel.

Humoring him, Jade looked to the back of his van and found only his discarded work shirt and a couple boxes of ammo. “No. Unless you know how to dig a hole with a shirt,” she stretched back and grabbed the shirt, bringing it to the front with them. Jade was hoping to find a company name or logo, but instead, the button-up work shirt only had his name patch and the faint scent of an upscale cologne. “Nope, just this ambiguous work shirt, she looked back at Nacho, wondering how long she’d have to annoy him to get him to talk about his legitimate job.

“If you’re driving someone to the desert to kill them, you’re not digging the hole,” Nacho corrected her.

“Oh my God, you’re gonna make me dig my own grave with a shirt?” she laughed at him but noticed that same uncomfortable stiffness in his face and shoulders. The realization of what she was joking about hit her hard, and her smile fell from her face. He wasn’t taking her out to the desert to kill her, but he had done so before. Nervously, her mouth kept running. “So what’s this for then?” she kept her eyes on the shirt, even checking the tag, but it only read the brand and size of the shirt itself. He rose an eyebrow at her and didn’t respond, quickly turning back to the road. Jade waited, and eventually, he answered her.

“Work,” he responded briefly.

“Well, duh,” Jade kept from rolling her eyes at him and instead turned to look out her window at the passing cactus, dried grass, and sand. “I meant, what do you do?”

“You really want to know where I work?” Nacho asked her, and they both turned to meet each other’s eyes for a half-second.

“I’ll tell you where I work,” Jade falsely bargained.

“You don’t work,” Nacho stated, and Jade found her smile again.

“I work for you,” she offered and watched Nacho shake his head at the road.

“That’s not a job,” he pushed back.

“It makes me money,” she disputed. “A lot of money.”

“But it’s not a job,” Nacho countered.

“It totally is a job. It’s tough work dealing meth to methheads.”

“No, dealing meth to methheads is the easy part. You got that wrong,” Nacho corrected her.

“Oh, right. The hard part is dropping off all my cash with you and Domingo, and then dealing with batshit Tuco.”

Nacho sucked at his teeth, looking slightly annoyed that Tuco was even brought up. “Yeah. He’s always the hard part.”

“Seriously this time, what happens if he finds out about the—?” Jade began to ask about his side business selling OxyContin, but Nacho was so quick to answer that he cut her off.

“He won’t.” Jade watched him for a long moment, watching his jaw tense from her question, and eventually, he glanced over at her from the road. “If,” he started with an emphasis on the word, “he finds out, you won’t be around him. Don’t worry.”

“But I’m the only one selling it for you, right?” Jade pushed, but Nacho was still reluctant to answer. “Right?” Hell, if she wasn’t the only one, Nacho should have her drop it altogether. She wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

“You shouldn’t be selling it at all but Corey and Joel—”

It was Jade’s turn to cut him off. “Are competent and trustworthy,” she finished his sentence for him.

“They’re scared of Tuco,” he corrected her with another quick glance from the road, “and they wouldn’t hold up during a drop like you do. They wouldn’t handle what you did as well as you did.”

“As well as I did? I was a bleeding, crying mess. I barely handled anything. Tuco brought out that sherbert and I almost stuck my hand in it,” Jade laughed, thinking it’d help loosen up Nacho. Instead, he looked even more stressed and stiff. “Look, he just wants to share tacos and joke about drugs, and dance with me. It had to be the meth he snorted. That’s why he flipped that one day.”

“It doesn’t really matter. If Tuco thinks somethings off, then his minds going to immediately jump to you playing him somehow,” Nacho explained. “I’ve seen it happen to people he thought of as a friend, people he trusted more than you.”

“Well,” Jade sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to pull him out of how serious he was being. “If worst comes to worst, then I could just sell you out, right?” she asked, mostly as a joke and was slightly surprised to hear Nacho laugh from his seat on her left.

“Yeah, sell me out, and we’ll see how fast he stabs me with that bowie knife he snorts crystal off of.”

“Then I can have your job counting the cartel’s cash out,” Jade looked to Nacho again, and her eyes lingered on the smile spread over his features. “You know I wouldn’t do that, though, right?” she added after a moment as if he were actually worried.

“Why not?” he questioned her.

“I like you more than him,” Jade responded without much thought, but the whole “I like you” statement caught her off guard, no matter the context.

Nacho spared her one of his quick glances before shaking his head. “I don’t know if I should take offense to that or not.”

“What?” Jade felt her heart sink into her stomach.

“If someone has to say they’d choose me over Tuco Salamanca, hell any Salamanca, instead of just letting me assume that fact,” Nacho finished with a shake of his head and another chuckle at Jade’s brief worry. Still, she took that as her queue to shut up. Half flirting and talking about Tuco at the same time was just too weird.

Eventually, they turned off the highway, and Nacho drove them down a dirt road until Jade wasn’t quite sure it was a road anymore. He stopped the van underneath the shade from a large mesquite tree and got out. Jade took a moment to glance around the desert. Besides the one large tree, there were numerous bushes, cactus, and a sandy dried-up riverbed. A ways away from them Jade though she could see the roof of an old, most likely abandoned, shack.

Her attention was drawn back to Nacho when he opened the passenger door of his van for her, and she unbuckled her seatbelt. “Thanks,” she told him quickly as he helped her down, closing the door behind her.

“Sure,” he told her, and, unfortunately, he immediately pulled the handgun out from the back of his waistband. “Don’t shoot me or my van,” Nacho stated. He handed it to her with his hand on the barrel, and the handle pointed towards her.

“Are we really doing this?” she asked, prompting a sigh from Nacho.

“No, I just drive girls out to the desert for fun,” he told her sarcastically, still holding the gun out for her to take, so she reluctantly did.

“I guess some girls would think this is fun,” Jade examined the gun in her hand, before turning it over and looking at the other side.

“Not this girl,” Nacho told her as he turned around, walking to the back of his van and opening one of the doors up.

“I’d literally rather be doing anything else right now,” Jade admitted. She watched as he closed the door and walked back over to her, the boxes of ammunition in his hands.

“Really?” Nacho rose an eyebrow at her, “There’s a lot of worse things you could be doing.”

“Nope,” Jade disagreed. “This makes the top three along with standardized testing and food poisoning.”

“Food poisoning?” Nacho questioned her. “Is this better or worse?”

“Better. It goes food poisoning, shooting, then tests for my top three worst things I’d never like to ever do. Ever,” Jade stressed, thinking she could still possibly talk her way out of this. In response, Nacho smiled at her misery.

“Come on. You see that old plywood over there by the river bed?” Nacho pointed, walking away from his van. Though stubborn, Jade decided to follow him instead of stand next to his van like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

“Yeah, I see it,” Jade sighed, her free hand on her hip as she navigated the desert foliage to where Nacho was standing, at the edge of the mesquite tree’s shade. 

“It’s about fifteen yards away,” Nacho looked back to her as Jade stood next to him. “Realistically anything you shoot would be right in front of you—”

“Realistically?” Jade stopped him, her eyebrow raised. “Realistically, I don’t need a gun.”

“I can get you a switchblade instead?” Nacho falsely offered her. “Trust me, you don’t want to stab someone.”

“I don’t want to shoot anyone either,” Jade countered, before wondering if Nacho was actually speaking from experience. Deciding she’d rather not know, she kept her mouth shut.

“It’s just a precaution,” Nacho reiterated from the first time he and Domingo insisted she carry a weapon. If she wasn’t holding the gun, she’d cross her arms. Instead, Jade settled for a slight pout. Nacho was unfazed by her expression. “Roll down your sleeves and button your shirt up,” he told her instead, setting the two boxes down on a flat rock near the trunk of the large mesquite tree.

“What? Why?” Jade asked him. It was the end of August, they were in the middle of the desert, and she was already in jeans.

“Casings are gonna fly out and burn your arms. Seen them fly into girl’s shirts before too,” Nacho smirked, holding out his hand for the gun in Jade’s.

“What’s gonna fly out?” Jade asked him, quickly handing the weapon over.

“The bullet casings,” he reiterated, before pulling the top part of the gun back, showing her the barrel and an empty spot where Jade assumed the bullets would be. “They’re pretty hot when they’re just fired.”

“Oh,” Jade said before he ejected the clip from the gun and knelt down to start loading it. Jade hesitated a moment before doing what Nacho had told her and began rolling down her sleeves. She buttoned up her flannel shirt after struggling with the top three of four buttons. Apparently, she had never buttoned that shirt up that far before.

“Need help?” Nacho noticed, finishing before Jade had.

“Shut up,” Jade mumbled, chin still to her chest as she struggled to button the second to last one. The only button left undone was the one on the collar. “Okay, I look like a dork. Now, what?” she finally dropped her arms and looked up to Nacho, only to be met with his smirk.

With the gun still in his hand, Nacho reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small bag of earplugs, handing it to her.

“Guns are also really loud,” he told her as Jade took the bag from him.

“Well, duh,” she mumbled, pulling two of the half squished foam earplugs out. “Want a couple?” she asked, figuring it’d be easier for her to dig them out versus him with one hand. Jade handed him two when he nodded. After, she smushed the foam further and stuck one in each of her ears before giving Nacho the bag back. It was returned to his pocket as Jade asked, “Now what?” making sure she was speaking loud enough for him to hear.

“Come here,” Nacho nodded for her to stand in front of him, and she accepted the gun back.

“Stand here,” Nacho told her he pointed to a spot right next to him, and she did as she was told. “Hold the gun in your right hand, left under, like this,” he instructed, and Jade mimicked the way he gripped his hands with her own. “This is the safety,” he told her, before moving a small switch on the side of the gun, “it’s live now.”

“Okay,” was all Jade could manage, suddenly nervous.

Nacho moved behind her then, and Jade felt his hands on her shoulders, straightening them. “Move your feet apart a bit,” Nacho instructed next, and she did as she was told without turning around to look at him. Instead, she faced forward, towards the old plywood board in the distance.

“You’re going to want to aim down the sights, there’s one on the tip of the gun you’ll line up with two more closer to you. When you pull the trigger, there’ll be some kick, so make sure you have a good grip on the gun,” Nacho continued to explain, and Jade realized her mouth was dry.

Thinking about the water in Nacho’s van, she rose the gun and aligned the sights. “Like this?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just breathe in, steady, and shoot,” Nacho spoke from behind Jade, his voice muffled by her earplugs. She saw him pointing through her peripheral vision and glanced at his hand without turning her head. Instead, she did as he told her, only to realize her hands were shaking.

“Don’t be scared,” Nacho told her, misinterpreting her shaking hands.

“Says the guy who walks around with a gun in his waistband every day,” Jade huffed, still trying to aim down the wash towards the splintered plywood board.

“Relax a bit, it’s not a fifty cal,” Nacho joked, and she felt his left-hand settle on the outward curve of her waist.

“I don’t know what a fifty cal is,” Jade sighed, lowering her aim on the gun and trying to turn around. Maybe if she complained enough, they could just leave. Instead, Nacho’s other hand settled on the other side of her waist, keeping her facing forward.

“Don’t matter. Look, just shoot, and you’ll realize there’s nothing to be scared of. I promise,” Nacho reassured her. Jade didn’t verbally respond. Instead, she ignored her growing nerves over how close Nacho was or how he was holding her steady with his hands on her waist. Jade rose the gun again, and with a quick breath in, pulled the trigger on the gun.

The resulting sound startled Jade more than the kickback from the pistol or the bullet shell flying off to her side. In a quick reflex, she shut her eyes and flinched backward into Nacho’s chest. When she opened them again, she had no idea where her bullet had gone.

“See?” Nacho asked, loud enough for her to hear over the slight ringing in her ears despite the earplugs. “It’s not that bad, right?”

“This is the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to me,” Jade twisted her neck, looking back at Nacho in time to see him smile and chuckle at her.

“You’re the most sheltered person I’ve ever met. You know that?” he asked, keeping his smile and Jade had to fight to contain her own, despite the sudden kaleidoscope of butterflies in her stomach.

“Whatever. Can we go now?” Jade asked Nacho, forcing a pout.

“You’ve still got fourteen bullets in that gun,” Nacho rose an eyebrow at her before nodding forward at the plywood. “Keep shooting.”

Jade faced forward again, taking a moment to glance at the plywood (which she hadn’t even aimed at the first time) before raising her arms and readying the pistol in her hands. She could still feel Nacho’s hand on her waist, and it only made her more nervous. It was hard to concentrate on shooting while her mind was stuck on the man behind her, and butterflies were trapped in her gut.

With a deep breath in, she aligned the sights on the gun once more. Before releasing her breath, she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger again, more aptly prepared this time for the kick of the weapon and the deafening sound. She barely flinched backward, but still felt her back press against Nacho’s chest from how close he was standing behind her.

“Good,” Nacho complimented her, and Jade found herself smiling, until he continued with, “Want to try hitting the board now?”

“Bullshit, I hit it,” she half turned around, looking up to find him smiling.

“No. I watched you, you shot off into the desert somewhere,” Nacho told her, and his other hand found Jade’s waist as well. “You have to keep aiming when you shoot. Are you keeping your eyes open?”

“It’s impossible to keep my eyes open, Nacho,” Jade sighed but did as she was told. Despite her nerves and inability to focus on anything but Nacho, she aimed once more down the sights. Jade fought as hard as she could not to wince or shut her eyes when pulling the trigger. She was able to see the very corner of the board explode into splinters.

“See? You’re a much better shot when you can see,” Nacho teased, patting her waist with his right hand. Jade managed to scoff and act indifferent.

“Whatever. I hit it, can we go?” she asked, looking back again.

“I brought a hundred rounds,” he rose his scarred eyebrow at her. “You’ve shot three. C’mon, we have somewhere to be at five.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” Nacho told her.

Jade, overplaying her exasperation, sighed before turning back towards the plywood. She rose the gun again and mimicked what she had done on her last shot.

~-----~

When Nacho said he had somewhere he needed to be at five, Jade wouldn’t have ever expected him to drive her back to the abandoned power plant where they had first met.

“Seriously?” Jade asked as he pulled off, I-40 onto the old access road. She quickly turned in her seat to look at Nacho.

“Sorry,” he sighed without looking over to her.

“What are we doing here? Are you seriously bringing me back here?” Jade asked him.

“I didn’t know you still had such ire for this place,” he shrugged, still not looking over to her. “I mean, we met here.”

“The way we met was pretty shitty, Nacho,” Jade told him and gave up trying to get him to look at her. She turned to sink back in her seat with a sigh of her own.

“Yeah, well… It could have been worse,” Nacho told her, and Jade couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Yeah, it could’ve been worse,” she agreed sarcastically. “You could’ve shot us.”

“You mean Corey and Joel,” Nacho clarified as a joke, and Jade actually laughed.

“Oh, right. ‘Cause I totally wasn’t a witness either,” she couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey, one of you would have been easier to deal with. And if Mike didn’t talk Carlos and me down, you would have.”

“I would have?” Jade questioned him, raising an eyebrow as she looked back over to him, seeing him smile.

“If you have one talent, it’s talking to people. Did you forget what you did the first night I parked outside your house?” he asked her.

“No. But I wouldn’t call that talent. It was pretty stupid of me to do that. There was like a ninety percent chance you’d just kill me.”

“I didn’t say you were smart,” he teased Jade, and she faked a gasp.

“You ass, take that back!” she demanded, turning again in her seat to face him, but Nacho only laughed at her.

“I don’t think I will. You’re just a slew of bad decisions,” Nacho kept laughing as he parked his van in the empty gravel lot. As of that moment, they were the only people at the power plant.

“You’re one to talk,” Jade told him, looking around the place, finding it strange to see in the daytime.

Nacho cut the engine and pulled the keys out of the ignition. Jade expected some kind of comeback, but instead, as he looked over to her, his smile grew. “I think you got sunburned.”

“What?” Jade’s face fell, and she quickly pulled down the sun visor from the roof. He was right, despite the sunscreen she had put on, her cheeks and nose had a pink hue to them. “Goddamnit,” she whined.

“I gave you sunscreen,” Nacho laughed at her. Jade pressed her fingers into her cheeks, feeling a slight sting. Pulling them away proved it, there were white marks left that slowly faded back to the burned pink color.

“And I put it on,” Jade told him, “You literally watched me put it on, you were right next to me.” She moved the visor down to check her chest, but it was fine. Jade figured it was because Nacho had made her button the shirt up and roll down her sleeves. “Your sunscreen sucks.”

“Your sunscreen skills suck,” Nacho chuckled at her as she flipped the visor back up. Jade leaned back in her seat with a huff.

“Whatever. Are we early or…?” she trailed off, looking around the abandoned power plant before her eyes returned to Nacho.

“Probably,” he answered, checking his watch on his left wrist. “Yeah, by a few minutes.”

“So, which one is Mike? The old guy?” Jade asked him.

“Yeah,” he answered with a sigh, his mood changing slowly as he came down from their laughter. “He’s a pain in the ass too. He’s like some PI or something.”

“PI? What?” Jade asked him.

“Private Investigator,” Nacho clarified unnecessarily.

“Yeah, I know what a PI is. I meant like, what he introduced himself like ‘hey I’m Mike, the PI’?” Jade put on a horrible impression of an old man’s voice, and Nacho chuckled at her.

“No, not at all. He just knew who I was the first time we did this. Not sure exactly what he found out, which is annoying.”

“Annoying or freaky?” Jade asked him, losing her smile completely. She found it alarming that some old guy could find anything out about Nacho, and she wondered to what extent what the old man actually knew. Behind them, Jade could hear tires over gravel. Before Nacho answered, she tried looking out the back windows of the van, to see the familiar minivan pulling up.

“Here’s how this is gonna go, okay?” Nacho called her attention back to him, and Jade felt her stomach sink. “We’ll get out when they do. Keep your hands visible, don’t put them behind you or in your pockets. I’m going to greet them, you hand the old guy the cash. The nerd will count it out, then he’ll hand over the product, and we’ll get back in the van. Okay?” Nacho explained quickly, and, with a deep breath, Jade nodded.

“Okay, sounds good.”

Nacho leaned forward, pulling her handgun out from his waistband and then and handed it to Jade, who was quickly confused. “Glovebox,” he told her, and she was immediately relieved.

“Jesus, maybe tell me before you pull out a gun before a deal?” Jade asked, taking the gun from him quickly before opening his glove box to stow it. When she did, she found a manila envelope folded around itself in a similar shape to a stack of dollar bills. “Do you need that?” she asked, placing the gun next to the envelope.

“You take it,” Nacho told her, and she did as she was told, before having a sudden realization.

“Holy shit, am I supposed to be, like, your backup?” Jade asked him.

“No,” Nacho answered quickly, his eyebrows pressed together with a frown. “I don’t need backup. You think I can’t handle this myself?”

“Why was Carlos here that one time?” Jade quickly asked him, but Nacho only shook his head, opening his door to get out of his van as the two other men in the minivan did the same.

“I don’t need backup,” he reiterated before stepping out, and Jade quickly undid her seatbelt before reaching for her door handle. She hesitated as she watched Nacho walk around the front of his van, already realizing that he was going to open the door for her.

“Thanks,” she told him quietly as he opened the door, and she hopped out of his van quickly. Nacho didn’t respond but instead closed the van door behind her, his focus switching solely to Mike and the nerd, as Nacho had called him. Jade silently followed him, awkwardly holding the envelope of cash in her hands in front of herself.

“Really?” Jade looked over to the old man she remembered from a few months back, that same tone of parental disapproval in his voice.

“What?” Nacho responded quickly, the barest hint of hostility in his tone.

“You’re running with him now?” Mike looked to her, and Jade took a second before responding, glancing between him and Nacho.

“Uh, no? We’re just hanging out…” Jade bent the truth in her response.

Mike looked back to Nacho with an accusatory eyebrow raised. “You ‘hang out’ with people you threaten often? Or just the pretty ones?”

Jade watched Nacho’s jaw tense, and she looked back to Mike, not giving Nacho time to respond. “It’s not like that, we’re just buddies. We worked things out.” She smiled with her explanation, but when she glanced back to Nacho, he only looked more annoyed.

“Can we do this deal, or are you two going to keep chatting?” he asked, looking between her and Mike.

“You have the cash?” Mike asked him, and Nacho looked back to Jade, who still had the envelope in her hands.

“Oh, right,” Jade stepped forward and handed the envelope to Mike, assuming that was what she was supposed to do. Nacho didn’t stop her, so she only smiled again when Mike took the envelope and walked back to where the nerd was waiting by his minivan. Jade, keeping her smile, waived at the poor guy, who seemed distressed by her very presence. He only responded with a small, unenthusiastic wave back before Mike handed him the envelope.

“Really?” Nacho asked her, keeping his voice quiet.

“What?” Jade dropped her hand, looking to him with a shrug. “He looks scared.”

“Do you have to make friends with everyone?” Nacho asked her, unable to keep a straight face through his question, and Jade crossed her arms, smiling back at him.

“Don’t get jealous,” she told him, “I bet these things would be less… taxing?”

“Don’t,” Nacho shook his head, and Jade quickly turned her smile into a pout.

“You already use me to deescalate Tu—”

“Don’t talk about him. And you aren’t seeing him again after last time. I told you that,” Nacho told her quickly as Mike started walking back towards them, a small box in his hands and the nerd following.

“Should I hand these to you or her?” Mike sarcastically asked Nacho, who only responded by crossing his arms.

“I’ll take it, I guess,” Jade looked to Nacho, hoping he’d stop her if she wasn’t supposed to, but he didn’t respond in any telling way. “Thanks,” she added when Mike handed her the box.

“I—it’s all there, like usual. Twelve bottles, factory-sealed, one hundred pills each. Uh, eighty milligrams…” the nerd told her, continually glancing at Nacho, who had kept his arms crossed with a slight scowl on his face. “You-you’re welcome to count, as usual…”

Jade, herself, was half shocked by what the guy was saying, but then realized that there was no way they were here for Meth. She quickly opened the box up and found what she had feared inside, full bottles of OxyContin. Her blue eyes flashed to her left hand, where she still had a bandage around her middle finger, but the cuts on her ring and pinky finger had nearly healed.

“Am I counting this?” she looked over to Nacho, sounding less than enthused by her discovery.

“No,” he said shortly before turning around and walking back to his van. He tugged lightly on the back of her flannel shirt when he passed, a silent gesture telling her to follow him.

“Uh,” she looked back to Mike and the nerd quickly. “It was nice meeting you guys. Like, for real this time,” Jade told the two as she stepped back towards Nacho’s van, before stopping. “Oh, I didn’t even— I’m Jade,” she held out her hand quickly to the men. “I didn’t even introduce myself.”

“Oh, I’m, uh,” the nerd cleared his throat, reaching for her hand. “I’m Da—Pryce,” he shook her hand quickly. She smiled at him before looking at Mike. She didn’t bother keeping her hand out as he crossed his arms.

“Okay, cool,” she smiled at them both instead before continuing backward. “I’m gonna…. Go,” she looked to Nacho, who was standing by the passenger door of his van, waiting for her.

“Okay, bye,” Pryce told her, and she turned around. When she approached Nacho, she thought he was going to say something just by the look on his face. Instead, he was silent, waiting for Jade to climb into his van before closing the door behind her. She reached forward to the glove box, placing the box of pills inside before snapping it shut.

By the time Nacho made his way to the driver’s seat of his van and closed the door behind himself, Pryce and Mike were driving away in their own van.

“That should have gone smoother,” Nacho sighed in the driver’s seat, watching Pryce and Mike drive away from the power plant as Jade pulled her seatbelt around herself.

“I thought it was pretty smooth?” she questioned, and he looked over to her. “It was better than the first deal I was involved in anyways,” she admitted, trying to be funny.

“No idiot teenagers were getting drunk and high this time and interrupting it,” Nacho added. Even though he sounded harsh, Jade could tell he was joking as well and smiled at him.

“Hey,” she said, “Watch it. And we were barely able to get drunk or high. The whole night sucked.”

Nacho looked like he was going to respond to her but stopped himself, before looking around the abandoned power plant, tapping his steering wheel. “Wanna go to a party?” he asked suddenly, catching Jade off guard with the question before looking back to her.

“A party?” she asked with an eyebrow raised, keeping her smile. She was vaguely interested in what types of “parties” Nacho went to all of a sudden.

“Well, not like, a party. Not your kind of party,” he clarified, but Jade remained interested, leaning closer and keeping her smile.

“Tell me more,” she exaggerated her interest.

Nacho laughed before turning his van’s engine on. “It’s a… gathering. Technically its a birthday,” he shrugged.

“Who’s birthday?”

“Domingo’s cousin. I think he’s around your age?”

“Sold,” Jade answered quickly. “I’m one hundred percent down. Let’s go.”

“Really?” Nacho questioned her sudden commitment. “Why?”

“Pfft, Domingo is gonna be there, it’s his cousin’s birthday,” Jade explained, realizing that she may have actually made Nacho jealous.

“Domingo?” he asked her, and she nodded. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” Jade nodded. “He’s like, the only one of your buddies who hasn’t tried to kill me or something. Including you,” Jade told him, using the truth to keep messing around with him.

Nacho quickly masked whatever he felt and pointed out her window. “Okay, well, you can get out of my van now.”

“Nah, I’m fine here. Thanks,” she smiled, and Nacho returned it before finally driving off.

“Seriously, though. Domingo is your favorite?” he asked, and Jade shook her head even though Nacho didn’t see.

“Why do you assume I have a favorite? I never play favorites,” she told him, still teasing him.

“Yeah, okay. Because Domingo buys you food and brings you coffee and picks you up in the middle of the night,” Nacho stated falsely, listing just a few things he had done for her.

“You don’t know that. Domingo and I hang out all the time when he’s not constantly at that furniture store. Like, all the time,” Jade couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re really getting jealous, aren’t you?”

“I don’t get jealous,” he faked a smile, and it disappeared in a matter of seconds. “But it is strange how I had to invite you to the party instead of Domingo, since, you know, you’re such close buddies.”

“Maybe he already did, and I told him no?” Jade shrugged, and Nacho glanced at her again. “And then you convinced me.”

He only smirked as he turned onto I-40, letting their conversation drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a thing happened recently, and I was reminded why I used to have a rule of not reading fanfics in the pairing/fandom I was writing for. So there's this other Nacho/OFC fic I'm reading and it's great and everything right? And it's not a slow burn so things are actually happening without hundreds of thousands of words. But a plot point came up in it and I realized that it's pretty much where this story is headed. I read that bit and I was like **F U C K**. I do have a plot (though I admit its a complete fucking mess and if Iw as asked to make a timeline I literally could not) and if I scrapped that part I'd lose over 40,000 words that I haven't yet posted 😅. I did talk to the boyfriend and he thinks it's fine. I also asked the author about it and she said it was just a whim, so everything is probably fine. I mean, eventually as Nacho gets more popular, more ideas will get recycled anyway. I just wanted to mention this asap.
> 
> Anyway, on a lighter note, I _finally_ updated "Hard to Be a God" with the companion chapter to "The Less I Know the Better" (chapter 11) and it's a teensy bit naughty 😉 Also, it pushed me over the 200k mark in my Scrivener file so that was pretty awesome.
> 
> I just want to thank you all so much for reading and leaving kudos and comments. Even seeing the read count on this go up makes me happy. Also huge thanks to my boyfriend who beta read this whole thing in one day again. He's amazing ❤.
> 
> (P.S. If you haven't read "Tip" yet by multifandomhaven, what are you waiting for? Seriously go read it 😁)


	16. Fade Into You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start to heat up at Emilio's birthday party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Mazzy Star's song "Fade Into You".
> 
> This chapter is about 24 novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 44 minutes to read. 
> 
> Per usual, the spoiler warning for Season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other content warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Also, literally all the Spanish was used in this chapter, I'm sorry. But! It was written in such a way where Jade has no idea whats's being said (as per usual) so it fits the narrative. Translations are still in the End Notes below.

The sun had already set by the time they had gotten to the party. After the deal with Mike and Pryce at the power plant, Nacho had driven them back into the city and made a pit stop at his apartment. He stowed the new OxyContin bottles in the safe in his closet before changing into his usual “high-end” attire, complete with his gold chains, snake earing, and crocodile boots.

When they had finally arrived, Jade was stunned to see the neighborhood street lined with parked cars. More than half were classics, and Jade would have bet they all had neon and hydraulics.

Nacho parked towards the opposite end of the street, and Jade found herself asking, “What kind of party is this again?”

“Birthday party,” Nacho answered her, killing his van’s engine.

“Is Domingo’s cousin some kind of celebrity?” Jade asked him, and Nacho’s only answer was to give her a half-smile before getting out of his van and walking around to open her door. He helped her out before locking the van doors and closing it behind her. Jade never got a verbal answer as she walked with Nacho back down the street.

Nacho led Jade up to the front door of a house, and she could hear cumbia music playing loudly from the back yard. She followed Nacho to the door and expected him to just enter, like most of the parties she had arrived late to, but instead, he stood in front of it and sighed.

“What’s up?” she asked, and Nacho glanced at her.

“We won’t be here long,” he shook his head before running a hand down his face. Jade realized he must have been mentally preparing himself.

“You’re totally gonna have more fun than you think,” Jade smiled at Nacho, and he shook his head in response. He reached for the doorknob then and opened it, stepping in first. Jade entered after him, half caught off guard by the overwhelming smell of Mexican food.

“Ay, Nacho!” he was greeted almost immediately by a group of hard looking guys, all in buttoned-up flannels and khakis. Despite the attire, Jade could see tattoos peeking up from their collars on their necks and spread over the backs of their hands.

Nacho responded with an immediate smile and started greeting them all as they stood up from the couches. Jade figured one of them might be Domingo’s cousin, but Nacho didn’t bother introducing her. At least, until she had stood there awkwardly and one of them noticed her.

“Who’s this mamacita, ese?” one asked in English, and Jade immediately stifled laughter. Never had she been called something like “mamacita.”

“I’m Jade,” she answered before Nacho did. The guy extended his hand and, expecting to shake his, Jade offered hers. Instead, her eyebrows shot up on her forehead when he kissed her knuckles instead.

“Este es mi novia,” Nacho stated in Spanish, crossing his arms but keeping his smile when Jade looked over to him, wondering what was happening. Whatever he had said, it seemed to excite them all.

“¿Cuál es tu nuevo sabor de la semana?”

“Algo como eso,” Nacho nodded.

“Keep an eye on this vato, he parties hard,” another one of the guys told her, and Jade rose an eyebrow, placing her hands on her hips.

“Really? Okay,” she looked to Nacho again. He waved her to his side, and she stepped forward so he could wrap his arm around her waist.

“Te alcanzare mas tarde,” Nacho told the guys, and they all bid them goodbye, and Nacho led Jade away.

“Who were they?” Jade asked Nacho, “They seemed to really like you.”

“Respect, not like. They’re the crew that runs south of sixth street, west of I-25, for Carlos,” Nacho explained without looking down at her.

“Respect, huh?” Jade asked him with a smile and hung her right arm around his waist since he had kept his left around hers. He was leading her through the house as quickly as possible, and Jade assumed he was trying to hide from anyone else who might want to stop and talk to him due to “respect.”

“Do you see Domingo?” he asked, stepping out the back door with Jade.

“Is that your plan? Show up, find Domingo, then leave?” Jade smiled at Nacho as he looked down at her.

“Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad plan,” Nacho told her. Jade shook her head, stepping away from Nacho to survey the masses of people gathered in the large backyard.

“You really hate people, don’t you?” she asked him, crossing her arms.

“Most people, yeah,” Nacho advised, and Jade found herself smiling again.

“Fuckin’ introverts,” she said, stopping as she spotted Domingo sitting on a low wall near the pool. “He’s over there... Is that his girlfriend?” She turned back to Nacho after pointing.

“Uh, yeah,” Nacho nodded, seeing the couple as well.

“Domingo has a girlfriend and didn’t tell me?” Jade asked, feigning shock. She looked back to Nacho in time to catch him smile.

“So much for best friends, huh?” he asked her smugly.

Jade thought a moment, remembering how awkward she felt when she had accidentally grabbed Nacho's hand after he had shown up at her house last weekend. She remembered her promise to herself not to feel awkward and did it again as she dropped her arms from her chest.

“Naw. He's probably just wanted to surprise me,” she stated, beginning to pull Nacho along after her. Thankfully, he didn’t resist her and allowed Jade to lead with her palm encased in his.

Domingo spotted them before they arrived, and a brief expression of worry flashed across his face before he forced a smile. “Hey, man. You brought Jade?” he asked, standing up from the wall.

“Of course he brought me,” Jade let go of Nacho’s hand to briefly hug Domingo. “He didn’t want to face the party alone, apparently,” she added as she stepped back.

“That’s pretty accurate,” Nacho nodded, “What’s up?” he bumped fists with Domingo before nodding to his girlfriend. “Hey, Bianca.”

“Hi Nacho,” she responded with a bright red smile. “Is this your—?”

“This is Jade,” he cut her off to quickly introduce Jade.

“Oh,” she nodded, “Yeah, Domingo’s talked about you before. You, uh, ‘work’ for him?” Bianca asked, but Jade had lost all focus. At her side, she felt Nacho’s fingers brush against her own as he laced his fingers with hers. All at once, Jade felt her body tense and melt, the gesture, though simple, was so much more than her just grabbing onto him and leading him somewhere. She couldn’t convince herself it was strictly friendly, either. Sure, she had held Tammy and Lena’s hands before, plenty of times, but it just didn’t seem like a thing Nacho would do.

The three were quiet around her, and Jade, who was thankful her cheeks were already burned since she was sure she was blushing, realized that she had completely blanked on Bianca’s question.

“Yeah, she’s been slinging for a few months,” Domingo answered for her.

“Sorry, oh shit. I completely blanked for a sec,” Jade nervously laughed, and felt Nacho’s thumb running gently across hers. It was like he was trying to reassure her that she hadn’t just made everything super awkward, even though she had.

“It’s cool,” Bianca shrugged. She was still sitting on the low wall, and Domingo joined her again.

“Did you see Emilio yet?” he asked Nacho.

“No, we just got here,” Nacho answered, and Jade glanced up at him, finding it hard to look at his face with how nervous and giddy she suddenly was. Jade could only hope her hands weren’t sweaty.

“Did we party like this when we turned twenty-one?” Domingo shook his head.

“If you didn’t party like this when you were twenty-one, you’ve at least done it before,” Bianca stated in a matter of fact tone. She had an eyebrow raised at both Domingo and Nacho.

“Yeah, I’ve already been warned to keep an eye on this one,” Jade tried to keep herself involved in the conversation instead of focusing on her butterflies.

“Uh-huh. These boys get a bit too crazy,” Bianca agreed. Jade looked at Domingo, who seemed to shrink slightly like he was embarrassed before she looked to Nacho in time to see him shake his head.

“We’re way past that, Bi,” Nacho sighed.

“Way past like, what, seven or eight months ago, you didn’t suck Domingo into a three-day bender with you and the rest of the boys?” Bianca smiled as she reminded Nacho of his past sins.

“Three days?” Jade asked, impressed with both her eyebrows raised. The longest she had partied had been a day, not even twenty-four hours.

“Hey, Emilio,” he completely ignored Jade’s question, looking over her head at someone behind her.

“Good timing, cuz,” Domingo seemed relieved as well. Jade turned around in time to see a very familiar guy handing Domingo a beer.

“Aquí está nuestra cerveza, y la margarita para tu dama,” he handed Bianca a drinking glass with a green blended drink. “And, fuck, Nacho!” he turned to Nacho with a laugh. “You showed up! Who else is coming? Tuco?”

Jade felt her stomach drop to her feet, involuntarily squeezing Nacho’s hand. “No,” Nacho answered him quickly, the pressure from her fingers being returned by Nacho in reassurance. “No, he isn’t coming. As far as I know, just Carlos and your cousin,” Nacho nodded to Domingo.

“Well, fuck, any of you vatos coming is great,” Emilio kept his smile. “Who’s, uh…” he started, finally looking to Jade.

Their eyes met, and both of them gave the other a slight look of confusion before recognition washed over them.

“Oh shit, Emilio?” Jade asked, a smile quickly growing on her face.

“Jade?” he laughed back, spreading his arms immediately for a hug. She didn’t want to let go of Nacho’s hand but did anyway to avoid the awkward one-armed hug she’d have to give him. “You brought Jade?” he laughed, looking to Nacho over Jade’s shoulder.

“I’m starting to think that was a huge mistake,” Nacho told him.

“You jerk, shut up,” Jade turned to laugh at him, only one of Emilio’s arms falling away from her. He kept one around her shoulders as she turned around to face Nacho.

“You two know each other?” Domingo asked, glancing to Nacho and sounding just as unsettled.

“Yeah, man. We went to school together. Used to party together. You knew what you were doing when you brought her, huh?” Emilio turned from his cousin and back to Nacho.

Instead of answering him, Nacho turned to Jade, his arms crossed, and said, “Please tell me he’s not another one of your exes.”

“No!” Jade responded quickly, almost shouting the word.

“Hell no,” Emilio’s arm fell away from Jade quickly. “I escaped that dumpster fire, homes.”

“Dumpster fire?” Jade turned back to Emilio. “Seriously? Dumpster fire?” Jade looked back to Nacho, who kept his hard face, but Domingo on the wall looked like he was literally biting his tongue not to laugh.

“It’s the beer,” Emilio tried laughing it off. “I didn’t mean dumpster fire. Kinda. Want a beer, homes? Jade?” Emilio asked her, changing the subject quickly. He pointed back from where he had just come with Domingo’s and Bianca’s drinks.

“I’m good,” Nacho shook his head, and Jade followed his example.

“I’m okay. Thanks, though,” she smiled at Emilio. She honestly hadn’t planned on actually partying, and despite what she was being told about Nacho, she doubted that he planned on partying either.

“Really?” Nacho asked her before Emilio could say anything. “Is that restraint you’re showing?”

Jade’s smile immediately fell from her face as she looked back to Nacho.

“Got anything sharp?” she asked Emilio, and he was instantly smiling, understanding what she meant.

“Hell, yes. C’mon,” he laughed and surprised Jade by pulling her along with him. She glanced back at Nacho before following Emilio. He led her to a large cooler, and when he opened it up, she saw dozens of cans of beer inside. He grabbed two out, then handed Jade one. After, from his pocket, Emilio pulled out an actual spring-loaded switchblade. He stabbed at the bottom of the other with the end of his blade, before offering it to Jade.

“Thanks,” she took a step closer to him and took the blade from him to stab at the bottom her own can. “I don’t know how to undo that,” she handed the knife back to Emilio, who retracted the blade with ease before he stuck it in his back pocket again. Jade didn’t say anything else before she covered the hole in the bottom of her can with her mouth and tilted it upright, the same time as Emilio. Still, in time, they both pulled back the tabs on the beer cans, and the rush of liquid and carbonation almost made Jade choke. That was about the time their synchronization ended.

Emilio finished first and crushed his can before throwing it into another part of the back yard with a slightly manic “Woo!” Seconds later, when he turned back to Jade, she had finished as well and wiped her mouth off.

“That was awesome,” she laughed. Jade was unsure what to do with her can and didn’t feel comfortable just throwing it randomly, so she held onto it.

“Congrats, you got about half that can in your mouth,” Jade heard Nacho’s voice, and she turned to see that he, Domingo, and Bianca had followed them. Nacho, in his sarcasm, had his arms crossed over his chest and a smile on his lips.

“Shut up,” Jade wiped her mouth and chin off before looking at the spilled beer on the ground. “That’s not half. I drank way more than half.”

“Want a beer now, homes?” Emilio asked him, leaning half on Jade with his arm around her shoulders again.

Nacho only shook his head. “Keep an eye on her for me?” he said instead.

“Claro que si, ese. She’s in good hands.”

“What are you gonna do?” Jade asked, wondering if Nacho was only saying that or if he honestly didn’t care if she did her own thing. She would have rather stayed with Nacho.

“Hang out with the adults,” Nacho told her. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Emilio laughed. “C’mon, let's go find something stupid,” he waved Jade along. “Have you met my girlfriend yet?”

“Nope,” Jade gave one glance back to Nacho before following Emilio away.

~-----~

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
where r u

She had utterly lost Domingo and Nacho about an hour ago when she had wondered off with Emilio to meet his girlfriend. To Jade’s surprise, she was the only other white girl at the party. Lizzy was really chill, kind of pretty, and they both kept up with Emilio. Now, Lizzy and Emilio were nowhere to be found as well. Jade had a good idea of what they had wandered off to do, but now she was alone. She was stuck in the house’s hallway near the kitchen with a guy trying to chat her up and a warm can of beer in her hands.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Dont know.

“Are you kidding me,” Jade sighed at her phone.

“I know, they were actin’ like they could just roll up on my crew—” the guy talking to her started, and Jade realized that he must have mistaken her reaction for whatever he was saying.

“Hey,” she cut him off quickly, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Stay here, okay?” she told him before briskly walking off.

“Oh, uh, cool,” he said to her back.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
im serious where r u

She decided to try the backyard again since most of the party-goers were was outside. Besides, that’s where she had left Nacho in the first place.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Dont know.

“Asshole,” Jade muttered, finding her way to the back yard before tossing her warm beer in a trash can. She surveyed the party but didn’t put much effort into finding Nacho. Over half the guys at Emilio’s party had shaved heads anyway. Instead, she tried a different tactic.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
help me

It was low, Jade knew that, but she’d end up spending the next fifteen minutes looking for Nacho, or end up getting chatted up again by another guy if she didn’t.

As expected, Nacho called her only seconds later.

“Hey—”

“What’s going on? What happened?” he cut her off as Jade answered.

“I’m sad, I can’t find my chaperon,” Jade pouted quickly, knowing he’d at least hear it in her tone.

“¿Me estas cagando, estas en serio?” Nacho sighed in Spanish.

“I dunno what that means. Tell me in English,” Jade smiled.

“It means you’re a brat. Where are you? I’ll come get you,” Nacho finally offered.

“I’m on the back patio,” Jade told him and heard Nacho sigh again.

“I’m literally twenty feet away,” he told her.

“Where? I don’t see you,” Jade looked around again at the back yard.

“Gazebo. I can literally see you,” Nacho told her, and she looked for a gazebo roof. Finding it, she looked down and found Nacho seated underneath with Domingo, Bianca, and Carlos.

“Oh shit, Carlos is here?” she asked, remembering Nacho saying something about him coming to the party.

“Has been for a while now,” Nacho responded.

“Okay, cool. Can I still hang out with you?”

“No,” he responded, and Jade could tell he wasn’t serious. “Carlos doesn’t like you.”

“Bullshit,” she could hear through Nacho’s phone before Carlos himself stood up and waved Jade over.

“Oh, yeah. I can totally see that” Jade laughed, “I’ll be there in a sec.”

“‘Kay,” Nacho agreed before they both hung up.

Jade shoved her phone into her jeans pocket before stepping off the patio. The back yard, due to a huge barbecue and being the main area for the music and dancing, was pretty full. Jade, to get to where Nacho was sitting with Domingo and Carlos, had to weave through the crowd, and only made it about halfway until she was stopped.

There were a couple of guys trying to get her attention. One even stepped half in front of Jade to stop her. If she had to guess, they looked younger than her, possibly closer to Charlie’s age. She wasn’t used to partying with such a diverse age group. Then again, there were literally elderly people in the house playing some card game, and children were causing a ruckus in the pool.

“What?” Jade asked over the music since she hadn’t caught what they were saying. In the back of her mind, she hoped that one guy from the hallway hadn’t sent them to find her.

“Do you speak Spanish?” the one in front of her asked, and Jade realized that’d make sense if they were trying to talk to her in Spanish.

“Oh, no. I don’t,” Jade shook her head and tried to step past him, but the second kid spoke up, stopping her again.

“Do you want to try a cherry pepper?” he asked, holding out a small, orange pepper by its green stem.

“A what?” she looked from the pepper and back to his face, “I don’t like spicy food—”

“It’s not spicy, it’s, uh, sweet,” the first interrupted her, and Jade looked back to him now.

“Why?” she asked. The atmosphere around her, combined with the alcohol she had so quickly drunk to keep up with Lizzy and Emilio, was wearing on her inhibitions.

“We just wanted to know if you wanted one,” the second pressed, half shoving the pepper at her. “We have a ton from the grill, people are just eating them.”

“Okay, whatever,” Jade shrugged and accepted the small pepper from the boy without a second thought. “I gotta go, okay?” she added as she bit nearly the whole thing off the stem. For a second, they looked stunned at her actions before they quickly walked away from her, leaving her path clear to get to Nacho and the others.

She turned around and dropped the stem as her molars ground down on the pepper. To her surprise, Nacho was already moving towards her, looking very concerned at that.

“Spit it out,” he told her quickly as Jade chewed, realizing that the pepper wasn’t very sweet and was actually kind of spicy. No, it was spicy. Really spicy.

“What?” Jade asked, thinking she just wasn’t used to spicy food, and that's why it was too spicy for her.

“Do you know what you just ate? Spit it out,” he grabbed ahold of her and spun her around, directing her back towards the house.

Jade did as she was told. She spit the pepper out into her hand that still held the stem, but a few of the seeds were stuck on her tongue and gums. “What is it?” Jade asked before sucking in a deep breath. The pepper wasn’t really spicy, that was a horribly weak adjective for it. It felt like her mouth had been set on fire.

“Its a habanero,” Nacho explained as they passed through the patio doors into the home. 

“A what? Jalapeno?” Jade asked, but she had never seen one so orange or round or small before.

“Habanero,” Nacho told her as they entered the kitchen. “Get that out of your hand,” he pointed to a trashcan as he let go of her. “Don’t touch your face,” he added as she went to move a stray strand of hair from her ponytail behind her ear.

“What is this?” she asked, shaking the half-chewed pepper into the trash. Nacho grabbed a few paper towels off the roll before wiping the rest of the seeds and her saliva off her palm. “Nacho, what did I eat?”

“¿Que pasa, Ignacio?” One of the ladies in the kitchen asked. It looked like she was making hand made tortillas in front of the stove. There were another couple of women, one peeling potatoes, and another dicing up tomatoes and onions.

“Ella comió un chile habanero, pero está bien,” Nacho responded to her instead of Jade. It was a tone she wasn’t familiar with, it was overly polite and almost shy. Jade didn’t focus on it, however. She couldn’t since she quickly realized that the heat in her mouth wasn’t reaching any sort of apex, at least not yet. She could feel the heat creep down her neck and up her cheeks. Her nose was starting to run, and her eyes were beginning to water.

“Pobre niña, le daré leche,” the woman peeling potatoes said to Nacho before she moved to the fridge.

“Nacho,” she tried to gain his attention back as he brought her to the kitchen sink, “What did I eat?”

“Wash your hand,” he turned the tap on, a full blast of icy cold water, just when Jade realized it wasn’t only her mouth but also her right hand that was burning. grabbed the dish soap from the windowsill in front of the sink and squirted a palm-full of it into Jade's hand.

“What did I eat? Is it poison?” Jade asked, fully believing that she might be dying from the otherworldly burning sensation and how serious he was being.

“It’s not, you’re fine,” he told her as the woman returned to Nacho from the fridge with a tall glass of milk. “Gracias,” Nacho thanked her before turning back to Jade, “Keep a mouthful of this in your mouth, It’ll help,” he told her, holding the glass for Jade to drink from.

“Mm,” she tried responding before realizing that she couldn’t because her mouth was full of milk. To his credit, however, it did help. Not much, but it was enough to stifle the blaze in her mouth.

“Wash your hands again,” Nacho told her, pouring more dish soap into her palm, and Jade did as she was told before swallowing the milk in her mouth as it had lost its soothing property.

“More,” she gasped, and Nacho complied.

“Why would you do that?” he asked her as she held her second mouthful of milk in her mouth. All she could do was shrug. “What did those flaquitos tell you?”

“That everyone was eating them, I dunno,” Jade panted, before taking the glass from Nacho in her still wet and soapy left hand. She brought it to her lips and drank another mouthful of milk. Nacho took that moment to go for another few paper towels. She swallowed the mouthful of milk and took another before rinsing her hands off. The excessive amount of dish soap was enough to soothe the burn on her palm, but her mouth, her whole head, was still ablaze.

“Here,” Nacho handed the wad of towels to her, “Still don’t touch your face,” he told her as she used the towels to wipe at her eyes before blowing her nose.

“Who did this, did my boy do this?” The woman chopping the tomatoes and onions asked, pointing at Jade with her kitchen knife.

“No, it wasn’t your son,” Nacho shook his head, his voice taking on that polite and semi-shy tone again.

“Mija, ¿quieres más leche?” the lady peeling potatoes asked her.

“Sorry?” Jade gasped, again swallowing her mouthful of milk. Her glass was already nearly empty.

“Sí por favor,” Nacho answered for Jade before taking the glass away from her and handing it back to the woman. She understood enough that she was getting more milk, so she didn’t argue and instead blew her nose again.

“What was that thing? A Cherry Pepper? Jalapeno?”

“A what?” Nacho turned back to her, his eyebrows raised. “‘Cherry pepper’?”

“That’s what they called it,” Jade watched the woman hand Nacho back the glass, refilled with milk. She took it from him quickly and nearly gulped it down. She had never eaten something so hot that made her forehead sweat or her ears throb before.

“Jade,” Nacho sighed, his eyes scanning over her undoubtedly red face. “What the hell is a cherry pepper?”

“I don’t know!” she nearly choked on her milk as Nacho started laughing at her.

“It didn’t even look like a cherry, I saw it,” he kept laughing at her, “It was nuclear orange!”

“Nacho, quit,” Jade whined. However, the hilarity of the situation was slowly revealing itself as the burn finally hit an apex and started to gradually descend. “Nacho, stop!” she finally laughed as well, her second glass of milk half gone. “It’s not funny!” she tried protesting but had to set her milk on the counter or risk spilling it from laughing.

“It is funny,” he pushed back, “Are you okay?”

“I’m dying,” she over-exaggerated before collapsing against the cabinets under the sink, her legs spread out before her. “Oh my god, this is hell,” she sighed before laughing at herself again.

“You’re okay,” Nacho kept his smile as he grabbed her glass and knelt down beside her, balancing on the balls of his feet. “But next time someone hands you a bright orange pepper, maybe don’t immediately shove it into your mouth.”

“I didn’t know!” Jade kept laughing at herself, it almost started making her feel nauseous from all the milk and beer she had.

“It wasn’t even red, what cherry is orange?” Nacho asked her before laughing again with her.

“There’s orange cherries, Nacho stop,” she placed her hand on his knee, her other gripping the fabric of her flannel shirt over her stomach. “There’s totally orange cherries.”

“No, there’s not. If you’ve seen orange cherries, there’s something wrong with your eyes,” he shook his head, the smile on his lips leftover from his laughter.

She couldn’t push the issue further as another few people suddenly appeared in the kitchen. Jade looked over and saw Carlos, each of his hands tightly gripping the shoulders of the kids who had given her the cherry pepper or habanero as Nacho had called it.

“Found them,” Carlos told Nacho, who handed her the milk before jumping to his feet. The change in his features was instant, moving from teasing and smiling to murderous in a millisecond.

“You two? Are you kidding me? Do you see what happened to her?” Nacho asked them, stepping over Jade’s legs.

“We didn’t know—”

“We had no idea she was with you guys!” they cut each other off.

Carlos added something in Spanish while holding them in place by their shirts.

“Hey, wait,” Jade started to quickly stand up before swaying and nearly falling back down. “I’m okay, it’s okay,” Jade set her milk back on the counter before using it to pull herself to her feet.

“No, you’re not,” Nacho only glanced back at her. The women in the kitchen had started joining in as well, pointing at yelling at the boys. 

“I am! I’m fine, hey!” Jade managed to get between him and the kids. “It’s funny, I’m fine,” Jade smiled at him with a shrug.

“What’s going on?” another voice overshadowed her, and she turned to see Emilio stumbling into the kitchen, Lizzy trying to hold him upright.

“Estos pendejos le dieron a Jade un habanero y se lo comio,” Carlos answered in Spanish.

“¿Qué demonios, pendejos?” Emilio quickly turned on them as well despite how drunk he was. “¿Qué estaban piensando para darle eso al la novia de Nacho? ¡Pinche estúpidos!”

“Are you okay?” Lizzy asked Jade.

“I’m fine!” Jade tried shouting over everyone, stressing that statement. “I’m okay! It’s funny!” She looked from Lizzy to Nacho before turning around to Carlos. “Let them go, it’s fine!”

Carlos looked form her, then over Jade’s shoulder at Nacho before sighing heavily and letting both of the teenagers go. “Fine. If I see your faces around her again, I’m caving your noses in,” he threatened.

“Jesus, really?” Jade placed her hands on her hips before Nacho spoke next.

“Apologize.” He had the same angry tone as Carlos, but somehow his single word seemed more intimidating than Carlos’ threat.

“We’re so sorry, Nacho—”

“Yeah, man, we didn’t know—”

“To her, you pendejos!” Carlos stopped them, realizing that they were apologizing to Nacho and not Jade.

“I’m so sorry, lady—”

“Yeah, we’re sorry, we didn’t know who you were—”

“Her name’s Jade,” Nacho added, and Jade looked behind her to find his arms crossed, and his chest puffed.

“Jade, we’re so sorry—”

“We won’t mess with you again—”

“You’re so cool for letting this go…”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah, sure,” Jade told them before looking back to Nacho. “Can you let them go now?”

He stayed silent and nodded at the kids, and they disappeared into the house in another second.

“Yo, you ate a fuckin’ habanero?” Emilio asked, speaking up first, and Jade turned to him.

“I don’t even know what that is!” she admitted in laughter.

“I’m so scared of those things, and I’m Mexican!” Emilio burst into laughter.

“Fuck, you’re badass, Jade,” Lizzy agreed.

“You actually ate the thing?” Carlos rose an eyebrow at Jade and, still laughing, she nodded.

“Practically,” she confessed.

“They told her it was a cherry pepper,” Nacho told Carlos, looking like he was trying not to start laughing again as well. His arms finally fell away from his chest, and he relaxed at least.

“What the fuck is a cherry pepper, chica?” Carlos asked her.

“I don’t know,” Jade answered, still laughing. Next to her, Nacho shook his head and sighed.

“Come on, I should get her to the gazebo before she eats something else. You two coming?” Nacho rose an eyebrow at Emilio and Lizzy.

“Yeah, I should probably make him sit down before he falls down,” Lizzy agreed, patting Emilio’s bare stomach. He had somehow lost his shirt since the last time Jade had seen him.

“I’m fine, really,” he tried convincing her but was easily tugged away by Carlos.

“Fuckin’ drunk, come on,” Carlos told him, and Lizzy followed.

“Here, take this with you,” Nacho told Jade, and she looked back to him to see him handing her the glass of milk. “Muchas gracias senoras,” he added in Spanish, and the three women responded in Spanish.

“Gracias,” Jade held up the glass like she was toasting them before Nacho’s arm settled around her waist, and he was pulling her back towards the back yard.

“Thanks for all that,” Jade told Nacho after taking another sip of milk and swishing it around her mouth. The burn had gone down considerably, but it was barely at a “comfortable” level. The only reason she wasn’t dying was because of Nacho, though, and she was genuinely thankful.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Nacho told her. “Just stop eating fantasy, nonexistent foods.”

“It was a real food, it was tangible, it was in my mouth,” Jade argued while Nacho slowly led them through the back yard.

“Yeah, the habanero was real, but I have no idea what a cherry pepper is,” Nacho chuckled as Jade drank more milk.

“Shut up,” she told him a moment later as they arrived at the gazebo, and she had swallowed her milk.

“So, what happened?” Domingo asked, greeting Nacho. Carlos had already shown up but was trying to convince Emilio to sit down along with Lizzy.

“I watched her,” Nacho started before sitting them both down across Domingo and Bianca in a wicker bench seat. “I saw this girl take a habanero and eat the entire thing in one bite,” Nacho explained to him. Domingo and Bianca both had their mouths drop as they looked to Jade.

“Shut up! I didn’t know what it was!” Jade defended herself, reiterating that fact for the umpteenth time she felt.

“You ate a habanero, and you’re fine?” Domingo asked as Jade took another sip of milk, and she almost choked.

“I’m fine? Do I look fine?” Jade asked him.

“Didn’t you just start yelling that you were fine inside?” Carlos asked her, sitting down after convincing Emilio and Lizzy to sit down on a swing seat at the edge of the small gazebo.

“I mean, I am, but I’m still literally on fire right now,” Jade admitted.

“Yeah, you’re pretty red,” Carlos nodded.

“Well, she’s sunburned too,” Nacho added, and Jade shot him a glare.

“You’re just a walking disaster today,” Domingo sighed.

“Every day,” Nacho agreed.

“How about can you all stop being assholes? Thanks,” Bianca shook her head before sipping on her margarita.

“Thank you,” Jade told her, earning a smile and nod from Domingo’s girlfriend.

“She’s used to it by now,” Nacho slumped in the seat a bit, getting comfortable next to Jade. She felt it then, the small weight of his hand on her left shoulder, and she glanced down at his fingers, wondering if it was intentional or if he had just put his arm on the back of the bench seat. He’d done this before, but that was when they were alone in his apartment, and he had literally just washed her hair, and she was high on Oxy.

Just that thought made Jade glad that she had nearly burned her tongue off with a habanero and had been sunburned because there was no way she wasn’t blushing right then. The conversation had seemingly carried on without her, and Jade, unwilling to catch up, brought her glass to her lips before leaning slightly to her right. She was testing the waters, wondering if she’d get a reaction from Nacho at all. If she was going to get one, she’d never know, because they were joined in the gazebo by an unfamiliar face.

“Ignacio!” a boisterous voice filled the small space, and Jade’s head snapped to the gazebo entrance, seeing a man walk up and clap Nacho on his right arm. He was wearing an open button-down teeshirt over a tank top that did nothing to hide his beer gut. He had on cargo shorts instead of pants, and Jade saw that he was also wearing sandals. It must have been his usual choice for clothes since his calves and feet were somewhat tan despite his darker complexion.

“Hey, Al,” Nacho greeted him, and Jade noticed how suddenly stiff and uncomfortable he was.

“Domingo! And— Miss Bianca, you’re looking lovely,” he continued greeting those he knew.

“Thank you, Alberto,” Bianca smiled at him before knocking back some more of her margarita.

“Carlos,” Al moved on, shaking Carlos’ hand before looking to where Bianca and Emilio were. “Well, I guess that’s what I get for arriving so late,” he laughed, and Jade looked to see that Emilio had passed out on the swing next to Lizzy.

“Oh, thank god,” Bianca looked over as well before sighing.

“Oh my god, I know! I thought he was gonna kill his liver before tomorrow,” Jade added with a laugh.

“Well, at least you’re still awake, Miss Lizzy,” Al laughed before finally turning to Jade. “But you,” he pointed at her, “I haven’t been introduced to you yet.” Al took Jade in for a moment before turning quickly to Nacho. “Is this your new girlfriend?” he asked, smiling at Nacho halfway through.

Briefly, Nacho looked worried, maybe even slightly dumbfounded. “She’s—”

“We’re just buddies,” Jade piped up for him quickly, and his expression was turned to her. Within the same second, his confusion dropped as his scarred eyebrow rose at her. Everyone around them suddenly seemed confused as well by what she said. Jade was suddenly afraid that they all, even Carlos and Domingo, had the wrong idea about her and Nacho.

“Ella es, uh, tímida,” Nacho added quickly in Spanish, and Jade looked from Al to him.

“¿Ella es tímida?” it sounded like Al repeated what Nacho had said in Spanish.

“Ella no es tímida,” Carlos added and Bianca shook her head.

“Ella no actúa tímida,” Bianca spoke up as well. Jade had no idea what was going on but decided against asking what was being said. If she had to guess, everyone seemed to be disagreeing with something Nacho had said.

“No tienes que preocuparte, hermano. No se lo diré a Carmen,” Al chuckled after a second before sitting in a chair near Jade. “I’ll introduce myself. I’m Alberto,” he extended his hand to shake.

“I’d totally shake your hand, but I just had a jalapeno—”

“Habanero,” Nacho corrected her.

“Yeah, that,” Jade nodded, “I had one of those in my hand, and I don’t want to get hell pepper juice on you,” Jade smiled as she explained.

“She full-on ate a habanero about twenty minutes ago,” Carlos added, “One bite, off the stem and everything.”

“Well damn,” Al laughed again, turning back to Jade.

“Not on purpose,” she half explained.

“Still, you’re alive,” Al smiled at her. “Did you like it, at least?”

“Uh, hell, no?” Jade laughed, wondering if it was a serious question. “I can barely feel my tongue, and my whole head was on fire.”

“I guess it was raw. Was it ripe at least?” he asked, and Jade looked back to Nacho, wondering if he was serious.

“It was bright orange,” Nacho answered for her.

“I bet if you had them cooked in a meal or a sauce proper, you’d love them,” Al’s smile was back.

“Al is sort of our resident master chef slash botanical genius,” Bianca tipped her glass to him.

“Oh, really?” Jade rose an eyebrow, thinking that was an interesting profession, especially with the circle they were in.

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell her that?” Domingo questioned, and Jade quickly frowned.

“Yeah. Remember that Pop-Tart box I showed up with?” Nacho added, and Jade turned to see him point at her.

“Of course I remember,” Al nodded, and something suddenly clicked for Jade.

“Hold up, wait a second,” she started, suddenly excited. She set her glass of milk down on the wicker and glass table between her and Nacho’s seat and Domingo and Bianca’s seat. “You’re the real weed guy then?” she asked, unable to contain her smile as she fully faced Al.

“How about I’m the only weed guy in northern New Mexico who knows what the fuck he’s doing?” Al laughed, and Jade joined him.

“Oh my god, you’re totally my new best friend,” Jade told him.

“Whoa, hold up,” Domingo held his hands up, stopping their conversation. “I thought I was your best friend?” he asked her, eyebrows furrowed in false confusion.

“Wait a second, wait a second,” Carlos butt his way into the conversation, “Domingo is your best friend?” Carlos asked from across the gazebo like he should have been her best friend.

“He’s never left me in a park by myself for five hours with tweakers on an empty stomach,” Jade deadpanned with her arms crossed.

“That was one time! I fed you after—”

“You didn’t feed me,” Jade interjected.

“I took you to McDonald’s at four in the morning,” Carlos jabbed his finger at her.

“The drive-thru guy fed me, not you!”

“You mean the desperate drive-thru guy you conned eighteen burgers out of? Did you ever even call him back?” Carlos asked her, his tone now accusatory.

“No, why would I call that guy?” Jade asked him, actually serious this time.

“I think I’m starting to understand why you keep her around,” Al laughed, and Jade looked back to him. “If you’re ever in Santa Fe hit me up, and we can go around some fast food joints,” he added with a smile.

“Sounds cool,” she smiled at him, though that had only ever happened to her one time. She didn’t even know if she could pull it off again.

“So,” Al exclaimed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a metal cigarette case. “This was for him,” he pointed to Emilio, who was still passed out on the swing seat, “But I doubt he’ll be awake before the weekend is over, so I think we should all indulge on his behalf.” Instead of cigarettes, Jade saw perfectly rolled joints inside the case and tried to stop herself from sighing. There’s no way it’d be a good idea to smoke, and Nacho would probably never let her hear the end of it, especially after shotgunning that first beer she had.

“Hell yeah, we should,” Carlos agreed. After Al had stuck one of the joints in his own mouth, he held the case out to Carlos, and he took one as well.

“Miss Lizzy?” he asked next. She was leaning on Emilio’s shoulder, one foot under her and the other gently swaying the swing back and forth.

“Oh, no. If I smoke, I’ll crash out like him,” she smiled at Al, who didn’t seem upset. Jade was glad for that, knowing she wouldn’t upset him and that he wouldn’t push her when she also declined.

“Domingo?” Al offered next, and the man looked a little unsure, glancing at Bianca next to him. His girlfriend only smiled before taking a sip from a salty spot on the rim of her margarita.

It must have been her silent permission because Domingo turned back to Al, nodding. “Yeah, sure.”

He let Domingo grab a joint from the case before finally turning to Nacho and Jade. “Do you smoke, miss Jade?” Al asked, offering the case to her first.

“Totally," she nodded but made no move to take a joint for herself, “but can I get a rain check?”

“Of course, when you come up to Santa Fe, huh? I’ll show you the fields too,” Al smiled at her. Jade had to reach for her milk and take a drink before she blurted out the stupid question about him owning a literal field of marijuana plants.

“And Nacho?” Al asked him last, and he also declined. When Jade looked over to him, she saw him shake his head.

“I still gotta drive her to her parent’s in a bit,” Nacho’s eyes met hers for a second before he looked at Al, who had already retracted his arm.

“¿Está visitando o todavía vive con ellos?” Al asked something in Spanish. Since he had set the cigarette case down and was pulling a small box of matches out of his shirt’s pocket, Jade wasn’t sure who Al was speaking to.

“Ella tiene diecinueve años, si eso es lo que te estás preguntando,” Nacho answered. At the same time, Jade felt his thumb brushing her shoulder over the fabric of her flannel shirt.

Al laughed at whatever Nacho had said, but he was the only one. “Es grosero preguntarle a una dama de su edad,” he struck the match after placing his joint in his mouth. After lighting it, he handed the box of matches to Carlos, who then passed them to Domingo.

“Le hubieras preguntado tarde o temprano,” Bianca piped up as Domingo lit his own joint before giving the box of matches back to Al with a quiet “thanks”.

“Hey, no lo culpen por darse cuenta de que los adolescentes somos... What’s the word? Guapo?” Lizzy asked, and Jade silently wondered how long it took her to learn Spanish, or if she already knew it from school. Jade mentally kicked herself then for not taking Spanish as an elective in high school.

“Guapa,” Carlos chuckled at what Lizzy had said.

“Guapa, yeah. Por supuesto que está saliendo con ella, mírala,” Lizzy seemed to agree.

“Si realmente están saliendo,” Carlos eyed Nacho from his seat. Despite feeling left out of the conversation Jade figured she’d try and ignore it the best she could, maybe ask Nacho later on the drive home.

“¿Tal vez se olvidó de preguntarle realmente?” Al piped up before laughing from his seat. The smoke from his, Carlos’, and Domingo’s blunts were already burning her nose and filling the air under the small gazebo.

“Te lo dije, ella es tímida,” Nacho spoke up and Jade looked up from her lap to him.

“Seguro, ese,” Carlos laughed, and Jade had the suspicion that they were making fun of her, or maybe Nacho.

“Give me that,” Nacho said after a moment, Jade watched his jaw flex in irritation before he turned to Domingo and reach out for his joint.

“Sure, man,” Domingo passed his off, his voice slightly raspy from the last hit he took. Jade was surprised, and a little upset when Nacho actually brought it to his lips and inhale. So much for having to drive. Maybe it wasn’t too late to bum one off Al? Jade seriously considered turning and asking until she felt Nacho’s fingers on her temple. He gently brushed that stray strand of her hair out of her face and tucked it away behind her ear. In surprise, Jade met Nacho’s eyes and realized that he was still inhaling. Suddenly, as the sound from the party blotted into a low hum and all colors seemed to melt away except for Nacho, Jade understood what was happening. She understood, but she didn’t know why or what had prompted this from Nacho.

He still had his hand on her. His palm was just below her jaw, and his fingers curled around the back of her neck. She watched the joint leave his lips before he leaned in, coaxing her closer as well with his hand, and Jade, still wholly stunned this was even happening, exhaled to empty her lungs. She watched Nacho part his lips and the tips of their noses brushed against each other while he began to exhale, first the smoke held in his mouth and then his lungs. Jade already felt like she couldn’t breathe but managed to inhale. She tried to just act instead of think about the smoke she was breathing in, the smoke Nacho was blowing into her from himself. Jade felt Nacho’s stubble against her chin, and when his lips grazed hers, she looked up, meeting his eyes. Heavy lidded, they were intense. Even more than the first time she had seen them, beautiful even. They were giving her an unreadable, nearly intimate expression through his thick lashes. Jade felt his thumb stroke the shell of her ear, and she felt goosebumps explode on her skin then wondered if Nacho noticed.

And then, as quickly as it had happened, it was over. Nacho, having given Jade everything he had taken from Domingo’s joint, leaned forward and handed it back. “Te dije que es tímida,” he stated, looking at Carlos. Jade sat forward in her seat again, eyes stuck to her hands in her lap as she exhaled with a small cough, her smoke, Nacho’s smoke dispersing into the warm night air. She tried not to focus on it as it faded away, leaving her feeling slightly light-headed and dizzy, not to mention burning hot. Or possibly it was Nacho’s hand on the back of her neck, making her feel that way? He still hadn’t moved it.

“Chingado, supongo que ella es,” Carlos replied.

Jade could feel everyone’s eyes on her and kept hers in her lap, hoping that her sunburn was enough to hide her violent blush.

“That’s good, by the way,” Nacho added as he leaned back in his seat, returning to his comfortable position, but keeping his hand in place. “What is that?” he asked Al on the other side of Jade.

“It’s a new strain I’m working on, a little pet project of mine,” Al chuckled proudly. “I’d bring you some, but you don’t seem like much of a smoker anymore.”

“That’s your sister’s fault, Alberto,” Bianca spoke up. She finished off her margarita and set the empty glass next to Jade’s nearly finished milk. The girl finally looked up from her lap, eyebrows furrowed in question. She wondered what that meant but didn’t question Bianca.

“Can we not, please?” Nacho asked her instead.

“¿Qué, Jade no sabe sobre Carmen?” Carlos asked, and, hearing her name, Jade looked over at him.

“What?” she asked, and Carlos laughed.

“Nada, mija,” Al exhaled, “Did you like that hit at least?” He was changing the subject, distracting her from something. Instead of pushing it, she let it drop.

“Al, I’m convinced you could put literal shit in a joint, and the hits would still be amazing,” Jade smiled at him, earning more laughter from the man.

“I like this one,” he pointed as he looked over Jade at Nacho.

“Well, she’s your new best friend,” Nacho sighed, “Plus, she’s got that effect on people. Everyone likes her. Even Tuco.”

“You got on Tuco’s good side, huh?” Al asked her.

“Somehow, yeah,” Jade told him, feeling Nacho’s thumb glide over the nape of her neck.

“Well, shit. I needed a name for this, maybe I’ll name it after you?” he joked.

“No shit, really?” Jade asked. She would have turned to better face him but didn’t want to lose the sensation of Nacho’s hand on the back of her neck.

“Yeah, that or I was going to name it after Selena—”

“Please don’t,” Nacho quickly cut him off.

“Are you saying don’t use Jade or don’t use Selena?” Al asked him.

“Don’t use either. Selena wasn’t even into this, why would you name it after her?”

“Who’s Selena?” Jade asked, looking to Nacho from Al.

“Quintanilla,” Nacho answered like she’d suddenly understand. He already looked back to Al, as if to argue his point further, but Jade asked again.

“Quinta-who?” Jade asked, and Nacho’s eyes were immediately back on her in disbelief. “Who is Selena?” she turned when Nacho said nothing, asking Domingo and Bianca instead.

“The singer,” Domingo stated, but the name still didn’t ring a bell.

“Oh no, Al, he’s not going to shut up about this now,” Bianca nearly whined, and the man only laughed again.

“Let him, he hasn’t talked about Selena for almost a year now,” Carlos laughed as well.

“Who is Selena?” Jade asked again, looking to Carlos, and then to Lizzy.

“Don’t worry, girl. I had no idea who Selena was either until I started dating him,” she motioned to Emilio, who was still passed out.

Jade looked back to Nacho, and his expression looked like she had admitted to not knowing what breathing was. “What?” she asked him, “I don’t know who Selena is!”

“She’s the queen of Tejano music, mija,” Al explained, but Jade was still drawing a blank. It almost felt like they all were being vague on purpose.

“It’s okay, we’ll fix this,” Lizzy spoke, standing from the swing. “Hey!” she shouted out the gazebo towards the house where the DJ was. “Play Selenas!” she had a false accent as she yelled her request, and Jade realized she was joined by some other party gores as well, shouting the same name. Immediately whatever song was playing cut into silence, and then a new song started.

“See? She’ll learn right now who Selena is,” Lizzy told Nacho as she sat back down on the swing.

Jade sat and listened to the opening, a woman singing in Spanish less than fifteen-seconds into the song. She looked to Nacho, wondering if she should tease him, especially since she still felt the nerves from that shotgun kiss he gave her. 

“Don’t you dare, this is better than any of the crap you listen to,” Nacho told her seriously before Jade could even open her mouth.

“Don’t judge my music!” Jade laughed at him.

“You’re judging mine,” Nacho added, trying to stay earnest, but was unable to keep his smile from her. “Selena was a literal queen. Do you disagree?” he turned to Domingo as he and Bianca started laughing.

“No, man, Selena is awesome,” Domingo kept laughing.

“Oh my god,” Jade came to a realization, and Nacho looked back at him. “You’re a fanboy. You’re fanboying!”

“At least I didn’t date a guy ‘cuz he had the same name as a rock star,” Nacho shot back in his defense.

“So you’re telling me if you met a Selena, you wouldn’t date her just because she shared a name with the singer?” Jade turned to better face Nacho in her seat.

“…Yeah, you’re probably right,” he admitted, finally taking his hand off the back of her neck to rub at his face.

“You fucking fanboy,” Jade laughed.

“Fanboy is right,” Bianca nodded.

“You know, I’ve known you twenty-two years,” Domingo added, pausing his laughter to speak, “and that’s literally the only time I’ve ever seen you cry, when she died.”

“That’s because everyone cried when Selena died,” Al explained.

“Yeah, I think I even cried,” Carlos admitted.

“She’s dead?” Jade asked, her face falling into a frown before looking back to Nacho.

“Yeah,” was Nacho’s only response before he placed his arm around her shoulders, and Jade leaned back into him and the seat they were on.

“Sorry to introduce you to something so awesome and then tell you the singer’s dead,” Lizzy apologized, her head on Emilio’s shoulder again. “I swear if you give her a chance, you’ll love her, though.”

“Okay, sweet,” Jade nodded, filing Selena’s name away for later.

~-----~

They left the party not long after. There was a funny moment where Lizzy had asked Nacho to carry Emilio to his bedroom. Eventually, he agreed because Domingo didn’t think he could, and Carlos was too lazy. Nacho had carried him off bridal style into the house, Lizzy on Nacho’s heels, and it seemed like none of the party-goers gave it a second thought.

When he returned, they said their goodbyes to Bianca, Domingo, Carlos, and Al, before Nacho led Jade through the party. Nacho had his arm around her waist until they were past the front door and headed to the street. The walk to the van and the drive to Jade’s house was silent, as usual. Still, Jade wondered if he was paying careful attention to his driving due to the hit of weed and several beers he had. None of it seemed to really affect him, though, Jade figured. If he really was a heavy partier, like she had been told, then Emilio’s birthday was probably nothing to him.

Nacho hadn’t said anything to her during the drive, even as they reached her neighborhood. Silently, he parked his van in the usual spot around the corner of her home before he killed the van’s engine. Like she had become accustomed to, Nacho got out of his seat, opening the driver’s side door before walking around the front of his van to her passenger side door. Jade had already unbuckled her seatbelt, anticipating that Nacho would open her door to let her out of his van.

“Thanks,” she said as she hopped out, and Nacho nodded. He was leaning against the open door, his right arm through the hole left by the rolled-down window.

“Thanks for coming with,” he responded, and Jade smiled at him.

“I think you would have been better off without me,” she said, and he chuckled.

“No, you were… entertaining,” Nacho took a moment to choose his words.

“Entertaining?” Jade’s smile grew as she placed her hands on her hips. “Yeah, sure. I still can’t feel my tongue.”

“It was that bad?” Nacho asked her, raising his scarred eyebrow.

“No, I guess not,” Jade bit her lip. Feeling bold, she jokingly added, “It was a pretty good first date.”

Nacho laughed at her, immediately breaking eye contact to look around them in Jade’s quiet neighborhood. “I don’t think you know what a date is,” he said before finally looking back to her.

“Really?” Jade laughed as well, dropping her hands from her waist. She had meant it as a joke and was pretty sure Nacho took it as a joke.

“Really,” he answered. After a moment, he added, “Hey, uh,” and took the pistol out of the back of his waistband.

Immediately Jade lost her smile, asking, “Do I really need to keep that?”

“It’s yours,” he told her, checking the safety and empty magazine though Jade knew full well that he knew it was empty and the safety was already on.

“How am I supposed to get that past my parents?” Jade asked, crossing her arms. Though it was close to midnight, she didn’t want to risk carrying a gun into the house. She was about ready to unbutton and shrug off her flannel shirt again.

“Here,” Nacho offered without hesitation. He stepped towards Jade and reached around her to show her how he was keeping the gun in his waistband. It was just like the first time he had done this back at Tampico at the loading docks. Jade dropped her arms from her chest. She lifted the hem of her flannel as well as her tank top to help Nacho. Suddenly he stilled as if realizing that his arms were around her and their bodies were practically touching.

Jade looked up to his eyes then, barely feeling the uncomfortable metal of the handgun he had secured in the back of her jeans. His eyes met hers, and it was clear to Jade what was happening. She immediately felt her heart start pounding.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been thinking about it all night since that hit she shotgunned from him, its just… with Nacho, she couldn’t ever tell what he was thinking. She didn’t even know what that had meant if anything.

His hands were slow to move back around her, settling on her waist for just a moment. When they did, she felt her own hands tighten on the fabric of her two shirts, slowly lowering them back down. Her blue eyes left his. Almost automatically, they lowered to Nacho’s lips for a heartbeat as she remembered the feel of his stubble against her chin and his nose brushing past hers. Her own lips parted slightly just as she was wondering if this was genuinely happening again; if they’d kiss for real this time. At that same time, Nacho seemed to come to his senses, sucking in a sharp breath and stepping back from her, his hands leaving her hips. Nacho ran one over his head and rubbed at the back of his neck while he looked around them. He looked everywhere but at her, and Jade felt her heart sink. Silently, she wondered if she had done something wrong. Was there something on her face? Did her breath smell?

“Uh, do I…” Nacho started, having to gather his words before he finally looked back at her. “Do you need me to break you into your room?”

“Huh?” was all Jade could muster amidst her thoughts. “What? Oh, no. No, I, uh… I’m okay.” She shook her head quickly, pulling the hems of both her flannel and her tank top down, concealing the gun Nacho had placed in her waistband was hidden.

“Okay,” Nacho agreed, closing the passenger door to his van. He glanced at her for a split second, and that was it.

“Thanks again, for like… everything,” Jade crossed her arms, before forcing herself to step around him.

“Sure. Uh, stay free the next couple of days. I’ll let you know when Domingo needs you,” Nacho told her, meeting her eyes twice more for a split second each time.

“Okay, cool… Bye, Nacho,” Jade was slowly walking backward at this point, towards her house.

“Bye, Jade,” he told her, making his way to the driver’s side of his van. She turned around then, and quickly walked away, but couldn’t shake the awkward and uncomfortable feeling. Jade had no idea what caused it or what she did. Until that moment, they were okay.

She felt her face blindly but didn’t feel anything out of place as she walked up the path towards her front porch and the front door of her house. Quickly, Jade unlocked the door and hid inside. After re-locking the knob and deadbolt, she turned around and slumped against the door, feeling the gun dig into her back, but she didn’t care.

“What are you doing?” she heard and looked up to find her brother coming out of the kitchen, holding a plate of pizza rolls in his hands. She had doubted anyone was still awake before remembering that it was still summer, at least for a couple weeks, and her brother was a night owl like her.

“Um…” Jade started, thinking to ask him if anything was wrong with her, but then remembered the type of relationship they had. He could complain about literally everything about her, so she didn’t ask. Instead, she asked, “If I pay you twenty bucks, will you hug me?”

“Uh, sure?” Charlie agreed hesitantly. He stepped forward and set his plate of pizza rolls on the couch before Jade reached out and wrapped her arms around him. Even though he was thirteen, he was already an inch or two taller than her.

“Are you okay?” he asked her as Jade rest her chin over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she told him, realizing that she wanted to cry. She squeezed her eyes shut to try and prevent that.

“Okay… you kind of smell like pot,” he told her, and Jade sighed.

“I was at a party. Don’t tell mom and dad,” Jade spoke over his shoulder.

“If I tell mom and dad, they’ll ask how I know what pot smells like,” Charlie replied, sounding bored.

“Good.” Jade should have thought that was funny, or she should have asked how he knew that smell herself, but she couldn’t be bothered. “Thanks, kid,” she said, letting him go after another few seconds. The hug didn’t exactly help, but she also didn’t feel quite as upset as before.

“You sure you’re okay?” Charlie asked as Jade reached into her back pocket to pull out her wallet.

“Yeah, guys are just assholes,” she admitted as she pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to him.

“What guys? Corey?”

Jade huffed, stuffing her wallet into her back pocket again. “I broke up with him a while ago.”

“That sucks, I liked him,” Charlie told her as he picked up his pizza rolls from the couch.

“You were the only one,” Jade told him, thinking on how Elle was less than impressed with Corey, and how neither of her parents weren't really thrilled about him either.

“Do you wanna play Mortal Kombat or something?” Charlie asked her next, and Jade shook her head.

“Maybe later, kid. I smell like pot, remember? I should shower,” she told him as he started back for the hallway.

“Okay, whatever.” Jade watched him walk into the hallway and disappear before she shakily sighed, feeling tears sting at her eyes. She decided she’d try not to cry, and take a hot shower (or possibly just luke warm since she was sunburned and could still feel that habanero in her mouth). She’d try and sleep after, and call Lena and Tammy in the morning. And she’d try her best not to think about Nacho until then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Este es mi novia.” — She’s my girlfriend.
> 
> “¿Cuál es tu nuevo sabor de la semana?” — What, she’s your new flavor of the week?
> 
> “Algo como eso.” — Something like that.
> 
> “Te alcanzare mas tarde.” — I'll catch up with you later.
> 
> “Aquí está nuestra cerveza y la margarita para tu dama.” — Here’s your beer, and the margarita for your lady.
> 
> “Claro que si, ese.” — Sure thing, ese.
> 
> “¿Me estas cagando, estas en serio?” — You’ve got to be shitting me, are you fucking serious?
> 
> “¿Que pasa, Ignacio?” — What's up, Ignacio?
> 
> “Ella se comió un chile habanero, pero está bien.” — She ate a pepper, but she’s okay.
> 
> “Pobre niña, le daré leche.” — Poor girl, I’ll get her milk.
> 
> Flaquitos — Pretty much means skinny, Nacho uses it to describe the skateboard twins, Lars and Cal, in episode two of Season one of Better call Saul.
> 
> “Mija, ¿quieres más leche?” — Mija, do you want more milk?
> 
> “Sí por favor.” — Yes, please.
> 
> “Estos pendejos le dieron a Jade un habanero y se lo comio.” — These idiots fed Jade a habanero.
> 
> “¿Qué demonios, pendejos? ¿Qué estaban piensando para darle eso al la novia de Nacho? ¡Pinche estúpidos!” — What the fuck, you assholes? What are you thinking fucking with Nacho’s girlfriend like that? Fucking estupidos! (my boyfriend translated this for me and I forgot what he said it was so the English may not be spot on).
> 
> “Muchas gracias senoras.” — Thank you so much senoras.
> 
> “Gracias.” — Thanks.
> 
> “Ella es, uh, tímida.” — She is, uh, shy.
> 
> “¿Ella es tímida?” — She’s shy?
> 
> “Ella no es tímida.” — She is not shy.
> 
> “Ella no actúa tímida.” — She doesn’t act shy.
> 
> “No tienes que preocuparte, hermano. No se lo diré a Carmen.” — You don’t have to worry, Hermano. I won’t tell Carmen.
> 
> “¿Está visitando o todavía vive con ellos?” — Is she visiting or does she still live with them?
> 
> “Ella tiene diecinueve años, si eso es lo que te estás preguntando.” — She’s nineteen, if that’s what you’re wondering.
> 
> “Es grosero preguntarle a una dama de su edad.” — It’s rude to ask a lady her age.
> 
> “Le hubieras preguntado tarde o temprano.” — You would have asked her sooner or later.
> 
> “Hey, no lo culpen por darse cuenta de que los adolescentes somos ... What’s the word? Guapo?” — Hey, don’t blame him for realizing us teenagers are… What’s the word? Sexy (masculine version)?
> 
> Guapa — Sexy (feminine version).
> 
> “Guapa, yeah. Por supuesto que está saliendo con ella, mírala.” — Guapa, yeah. Of course he’s dating her, look at her.
> 
> “Si realmente están saliendo.” — If they’re really dating.
> 
> “¿Tal vez se olvidó de preguntarle realmente?” — Maybe he forgot to actually ask her?
> 
> “Te lo dije, ella es tímida.” — I told you, she’s shy.
> 
> “Seguro, ese.” — Sure, ese.
> 
> “Te dije que es tímida.” — I told you that she’s shy.
> 
> “Chingado, supongo que ella es.” — Fuck, I guess she is. 
> 
> “¿Qué, Jade no sabe sobre Carmen?” — What, Jade doesn’t know about Carmen?
> 
> So... I think my boyfriend is mad at me 🤣 He doesn't really read "romance" stuff, and before this, I don't think he's ever heard of a "slow burn" before. Hopefully, you guys aren't as upset at that last scene as he was ❤ Nacho has his reasons, but we're getting there, I promise.
> 
> Anyway, how about that beast of a middle scene, am I right? Oh man, that's the trouble with writing out of order. I had to pack so much into it, and it got so long and fuck... I hope it wasn't a mess.
> 
> Lastly, I'm sorry this came out a few days later than it was supposed to. Between quarantine and working at home and my new sleep "schedule," along with all the fantastic stuff Michael Mando has been doing and the season finale of Better Call Saul... I got a bit behind 😅 But, holy shit, is anyone else having withdrawals from all the live streams and BCS ending? And I can't stop thinking about Michael's nicknames, of all things!
> 
> Okay, enough fangirling 🤩 I hope you all enjoyed this one, and thank you so much for all the reads and kudos and lovely comments, and thanks to my boyfriend for still helping with the translations even though he's mad.


	17. Violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade's current lifestyle finally catches up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Grimes' song "Violence" (Also what the actual fuck, X Æ A-12 Musk? Jesus Christ woman 🤦♀️).
> 
> This chapter is about 18 novel pages. Grammarly estimates it will take about 31 and a half minutes to read.
> 
> As with the previous chapters, this chapter takes place between season one and two of Better Call Saul. Potential spoilers are ahead. But holy shit we're so close to season two I can practically taste it. Other warnings include dumb teenagers, shoe-horning plot devices, and a bit of gun violence.
> 
> The Spanish dialogue used in the chapter will be translated in the notes afterward, as usual. It's nowhere near as much as last time😊

Jade didn’t end up calling her friends until the afternoon the next day. Half because she hadn’t been able to get to sleep, and when she did, she ended up sleeping past two in the afternoon. The other half was because when she had woken up, it took her another hour and a half to muster up the energy to get out of her bed. After, she went to the bathroom and checked on her sunburn. It honestly wasn’t too bad, but it still kind of hurt. She applied a thick, precautionary layer of Noxema to the bridge of her nose and her cheeks before she wandered into the kitchen.

Jade felt like she should be hungry but also didn’t feel like eating, so she settled for a glass of apple juice instead, before making her way back to her bedroom. She collapsed onto her bed then, dialing Lena first on her phone before adding Tammy to the call. After, they listened to Jade spill her guts about her heartbreaking crush on Nacho and what had happened at Emilio’s party the previous night.

“But… what did you do?” Tammy asked after her long-winded explanation of Emilio’s party, even going into details about things Lena asked about.

“That’s the point! I didn’t do anything!” Jade sighed to her ceiling.

“You sure you didn’t do anything?” Lena asked, “He just got cold feet for no reason?”

“It has to be. When I got home, I paid Charlie twenty bucks to hug me, and all he said was that I kind of smelled like pot. If I had something on my face or something he would have said so, he’s that kind of an asshole.”

“Wait, Charlie knows what pot smells like?” Tammy asked.

“Yeah, that kind of threw me off too— but guys!” Jade whined, “Help me!”

“Jade, babe,” Lena began, “I’ve never known you to have trouble with guys. You got this.”

“I don’t have trouble with high school guys,” Jade corrected her.

“Yeah, right. There’s a number of older guys, who’ve tried to talk to you while we were at the mall or something, that were in their twenties at least,” Tammy argued.

“Besides, all guys are the same, they all have one thing on their mind.”

“Not all guys are the same,” Jade disagreed as she started picking at her comforter.

“How drunk were you? Maybe he was scared you were too wasted? Like he was taking advantage?” Tammy asked.

“I doubt it. I mean, I drank a lot, but I had stopped like two hours before he dropped me off.”

“Is Nacho gay?” Lena continued, and Jade heard Tammy laugh.

“No, he’s not gay. But with your logic, he would have fucked me after the party instead of chicken out of kissing me… Oh my God, do you think he’s gay?”

“Babe,” Lena was laughing now as well. “We met him, he’s not gay.”

“There’s like, five percent chance he’s gay,” Tammy agreed.

“If Nacho is gay, he’s so far in the closet he doesn’t even know it, okay? That’s not why he backed off,” Lena reassured Jade.

“Okay, fine. So Nacho’s not gay, he apparently only thinks about sex, he’s supposedly into me because he let me shotgun that hit—”

“It was his idea,” Tammy butted in.

“Right, it was his idea to have me shotgun that hit,” Jade kept listing, “But he backpedals as soon as he drops me off at my house?”

Lena sighed before asking, “What were you wearing? Was it cute?”

“Uh,” Jade thought. She didn’t want to admit that she was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt because Nacho had shown her how to shoot a gun. “No, not really.”

“Jade, what the fuck? A cute guy invites you to a party, and you don’t wear anything nice? Jean shorts, tank top, nothing?” Lena questioned Jade’s judgment.

“It wasn’t like that, it was more of a ‘please come with me because I hate people’ thing,” Jade told them.

“Did you wear makeup, at least? Did you do your hair?” Tammy asked.

“Yeah, I wore a bit of makeup. Like a tiny step up from usual. And I had my hair in a ponytail.”

“Well, that doesn’t exactly scream ‘fuck me’ does it?”

“Oh my God, Lena!” Jade laughed out of shock.

“Listen, here’s what you’re gonna do next time you see him. Do you still have those jean shorts you wore to breakfast after Jesse’s party?” Lena asked her.

“Uh… yeah,” Jade lied. She did technically have them, but they weren’t wearable. She had gotten too much blood on them from her cut fingers and couldn’t get the stains out.

“He couldn’t keep his eyes off your legs when you wore those. You’re wearing them and a tank top. Do your makeup nice, okay? Lip gloss, eyeshadow, all of that. And do your goddamn hair—”

“Pigtails, apparently guys love pigtails,” Tammy spoke up, and Jade couldn’t help but smile, knowing where that expertise was coming from.

“Pigtails, perfect. You got that?” Lena asked, and Jade gave a short “mhm” with a nod, though they couldn’t see her. “And then, girl, you fucking ignore him. Hard.”

“Ignore him?” Jade sat up on her bed. “Seriously—?”

“You’re going to ignore his sorry ass. Either he’s gonna chase you or you’re gonna find out that he actually is gay,” Lena stayed confident.

“This is ridiculous,” Jade whined, pinching the bridge of her nose before remembering the thick layer of Noxema cream on her face. She pulled her fingers away and massaged them together to absorb the white cream.

“This will work,” Lena reassured Jade, and she could hear the smile on her voice.

“It actually sounds like a good plan, Jesse hates it when I ignore him, he’s all over me,” Tammy agreed.

“Same, Taylor can’t stand it either,” Lena agreed with her.

“Fine, okay,” Jade reluctantly agreed, knowing that her exes always went insane when she wanted space also, especially Corey.

“Let us know how it goes, babe,” Lena told Jade.

“Yeah, keep us updated,” Tammy agreed.

“Okay. I’ll talk to you guys later.”

The three girls said their goodbyes, and Jade hung up, laying back on her bed with a heavy sigh. There was no way this would work. The shorts were utterly out of the question, even if they weren’t ruined with bloodstains. She might get away with a tank top, but the only time she saw Nacho was when he was picking her up or dropping her off while she was dealing for Domingo. Doing her makeup and dressing cute for Nacho also entailed doing her makeup and dressing cute for all the addicts who bought from her. That was a hard pass for Jade, and all that left was ignoring Nacho, which she felt would do more damage than good. Maybe, Jade resolved, she should just forget about the party and go back to forcing herself to see Nacho like some sort of older brother. Sighing, Jade figured that was all she could do.

~-----~

From: Sunday  
Text: 1/1  
Blue shirt backwards hat one 8

Jade reread the simple text several times as she stood up from her bench. Jade quickly highlighted Domingo’s contact, calling him as she looked around the deserted street corner.

“Hey, what’s wrong, are you okay?” he quickly answered her after the first ring.

“Who are you sending down here?” Jade asked, not seeing anyone walking over to her from either direction.

“Tienes que estar bromeando,” Domingo sighed, his voice fading from the phone for a moment. “Jade, chill out.”

“‘Blue shirt’? ‘Backwards hat’?” she asked him. “Who’s coming down here?” Jade felt too nervous about staying at her bench and started making her way down the street towards the Circle K he had taken her to a few weeks ago.

“People wear blue, there’s more than one blue shirt in existence,” Domingo told her, and Jade scoffed.

“Just tell me who’s coming down here,” Jade sighed, stopping down the street closer to the next intersection after her own. She could see the Circle K’s gas pumps from where she was.

“What’s his name, Sonny?” Domingo told her, and Jade finally stopped, turning back around to face her bench on the other end of the street.

“You seriously just made me run away from Sonny?” Jade asked him and almost told him to shut up when she heard him laugh.

“You ran away? Really?” Domingo asked her, and Jade rolled her eyes, starting back for her bench. Even from her distance, she could now see Sonny waiting for her. She had dealt with him several times before, the first being when he told her to tell Dylan to fuck off. Never in a million years would Jade think he’d give her any sort of trouble besides his slightly indifferent attitude.

“More like sped walked away,” Jade admitted, picking up her pace to reach her bench faster.

“You know, if you didn’t conveniently forget your gun here—”

“I didn’t forget it,” Jade admitted like it was apparent. It pretty much was, Domingo knew how much she hated that thing despite that afternoon she spent with Nacho learning how to use it.

“Do you know how hard it’d be to explain away your pistol if my dad or another employee found it?” Domingo asked her, and Jade sighed.

“Next time, I’ll just hand it to you out in the open before walking to my bench,” Jade told him sarcastically.

“Nacho gave you that gun for a reason—”

“I’ll never have that reason,” Jade fought him, thinking it was ironic how Domingo kept using Nacho as an excuse, and Nacho kept using Domingo as an excuse. Both were trying to keep her dealing and make her carry a gun.

“Fine,” Domingo said, giving in, Tampico was probably busy for him to argue much longer with her. “You cool now?”

“Stop scaring me, and I’ll stay cool, yeah?” Jade snapped back at him. “At least give me their names. You know I know Sonny.”

“You also know I’m busy working,” Domingo countered, then sighed again. “Your stalker guy’s in jail, you know that.”

“Yeah… I know,” Jade stopped at her bench, Sonny had been watching her approach patiently. “I gotta go,” Jade told Domingo over the phone, reaching forward to silently greet Sonny, their fists meeting briefly as she sat down.

“Call me if something else happens, okay?” Domingo told her, seriously.

“Yeah, okay,” she replied before pulling her phone away from her ear, ending the call.

“‘Sup, kid?” Sonny asked her as she sat next to him.

“Bullshit with the bossman. It’s nothing,” Jade smiled, shoving her phone into her jacket pocket before her hand clasped around one single baggie of powder. Unlike usual, Sonny didn’t make any move to pull out his cash. To Jade, it didn’t look like he was trying to pull what Jesse would on her. She doubted Sonny would ever ask her for a freebie.

“What’s up with you?” she asked him, wondering if he’d answer.

Initially, he didn’t. Sonny just sighed and shook his head. “Nothing,” he told her, before finally pulling his wallet out, but Jade was intrigued now. She left the baggie in her jacket’s pocket and instead withdrew her hand so she could turn and fully face him on the bench, going as far as to sit cross-legged.

The pair sat in silence, Sonny’s eyebrow raised incredulously, and Jade patiently waiting for him to start talking with a smile on her face. “You are the strangest dealer I’ve ever had; you know that?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“I’m gonna take that as a compliment,” she stated, still waiting for him to speak up.

“Jesus,” he huffed, looking around the deserted street. “So, you’re a therapist now? What’s your going rate?”

“Depends on what you tell me. If you’re gonna start complaining about how someone owes you money or getting picked up by the cops or something it’s gonna be, like, twenty bucks a minute,” Jade told him, managing to get a half-smile out of Sonny.

“What about baby mama drama?” he asked her, and Jade herself smiled at the rhyme.

“Baby mama drama, huh? What’d she do?” Jade inquired, figuring he was going to say something about her bugging him for money or maybe cheating on him.

“Won’t let me see my little girl anymore,” he told her indifferently, obviously swallowing his true feelings.

“Why not?” Jade lost her smile to a confused frown. She didn’t even know he had a kid. As a response, he only glanced down at her jacket pockets, where he knew she was holding the baggies. “Oh,” Jade nodded. Yeah, that made sense.

“Found out I was using again, so she packed up and moved to Las Cruces with her sister the same week. Took my baby with her and threatened to call the heat on my crew and me if I tried following,” Sonny explained for her.

“Well… shit,” Jade’s shoulders fell. That was crap to hear, but then again, why wasn’t he doing anything about it? Sonny seemed to know exactly what the problem was. “How olds your kid?” she asked, instead of asking why he was buying more meth.

“She’ll be three on October eleventh,” Sonny explained, and Jade nodded. The kid was too young to even know what was happening. Again, Jade wanted to ask why the hell he was trying to buy more drugs from her, but Jade suppressed the question.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked instead.

“You gonna call me an idiot?” Sonny must have been able to read her mind from her expression, or maybe it was just apparent.

“No. Maybe I should, but I was gonna tell you that my dad’s one of my best friends.”

“Well, congrats,” Sonny sighed, not bothering to sound sincere.

“I’m serious,” Jade pressed. “My mom’s bipolar and half the time she can’t even get out of bed, so my dad and I did everything together, and I loved it.” He seemed to understand at that point without her having to go into much detail. Before Charlie was born, it was like her, and her father were locked in a never-ending game of pirates.

“You still talk to your pops, then?” Sonny asked her.

“Yeah, almost every day,” Jade nodded. He didn’t need to know she still lived with her parents.

“He know you’re slinging?” Sonny asked next, leaning back on the bench. It didn’t sound hostile, he seemed curious.

“No,” Jade answered. “No, he’d flip if he found out.”

“But you’re still close?” he clarified, and Jade nodded.

“Very. I mean, I don’t ride around on his shoulders in grocery stores anymore. But we’re close.”

“Then why are you doing this?” Sonny asked her, not even phased by her small joke.

_Nacho_. That was her immediate answer, and it almost tumbled out of her mouth before she could think about it. “Uh… hot guy, I guess,” she still chose the truth but spoke with more caution.

“Hot guy?” Sonny rose his eyebrows at her before chuckling. “Man. Who? Domingo?”

“What—No,” she stopped him, “Not him, no. I mean, I guess he’s good looking but—No, that’s weird,” Jade frowned as she tried clarifying. “He’s more like…” a big brother. Just like Nacho. “He’s just my boss. It’s someone else, his boss—our boss,” Jade successfully explained this time.

“A’ight. I get you,” Sonny nodded, crossing his arms in his navy, not blue, hoodie.

“Why are you doing this?” Jade asked, trying to move the conversation back over to him and his daughter. It was more modest than flat out, asking, “what’s wrong with you that you’d choose drugs over your kid?”

“You don’t have kids, do you?” Sonny replied with his own question.

“Uh, no,” Jade answered truthfully.

“I love my little girl. I can’t explain it, it’s not a type of love you feel until you have a kid. It’s like I love her more than anything. I guess that’s a close enough explanation,” he tried, and Jade nodded silently to show she was following. “But I hate being sober just as much as I love her.”

That she couldn’t understand. Sure, being wasted or high was fun, but never being sober sounded like hell to Jade. “She needs a dad, dude,” Jade tried, at a loss for what else to say.

“Yeah, she does,” Sonny agreed with a shrug, “But she don’t need me to do it. I’d just ruin her life too.”

“You want another man to raise your kid?” Jade asked him, wondering if offending him would change his point of view at all. Instead, he just agreed.

“Yeah, she’d be better off without me, you know? My ex can find a better man for my baby.”

“Will she, though?” Jade asked him and kept going before Sonny could tell her yes. “I mean, she dated you, her standards can’t be that great.”

Sonny did look a little offended by that statement, but realization washed that look off his face quickly. He understood what Jade was getting at. Instead of responding to her, Sonny leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Fuck,” he sighed.

Jade waited a moment in silence. She would have waited longer, but with possibly the worst timing ever, she watched Nacho’s van drive around the corner and park across the street from her bench.

“Are you kidding me?” Jade asked herself quietly, watching Nacho park before pulling out her phone. She hadn’t heard it go off and was unsurprised to find no missed text messages or calls.

“Who’s that?” Sonny asked her as Jade looked back up to Nacho from her phone, watching him get out of his van.

“Uh,” Jade looked back to him, “He’s… This is seriously the worst time,” Jade turned from Sonny to Nacho, who had just closed his van door. She saw he was holding a milkshake in one hand, complete with whipped cream and a bright red cherry, and Jade had to force herself not to smile.

“What’s up?” he asked, not in a greeting but with the actual question, looking to Sonny.

“Good luck with him,” Sonny ignored Nacho as he stood up. After, he held his hand out to Jade, offering to shake hers.

“What are you doing?” she asked, taking and shaking his hand.

“Leaving,” he glanced at Nacho, who was now standing before them. Surprisingly, he was doing an excellent job of looking intimidating while holding a milkshake in one hand and a paper-wrapped straw in the other. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again,” Sonny told Jade, and she let herself smile at him.

“Likewise,” she let go of his hand, and he started to walk away. Before Nacho could question her, Sonny had stopped and turned around, looking to Nacho again.

“She’s the worst dealer, by the way. Just so you know,” he stated. To Jade’s surprise, she saw Nacho nod, silently agreeing. He watched Sonny leave, rounding the corner before disappearing from view before he finally met Jade’s eyes.

“You’re giving more freebies?” Nacho sighed, losing his intimidation to disappointment.

“Nope. That mine, or is it just a new accessory?” Jade glanced at the milkshake. Nacho looked at it as well, pretending to contemplate, before handing her both the shake and straw.

“Why are you the worst dealer?” Nacho questioned after while Jade corrected how she was sitting on the bench. Her feet landed flat on the concrete in front of her, and her back rested against the bench.

“I think I just talked that guy into rehab? Maybe?” Jade admitted, peeling the paper off the straw as Nacho sat down next to her.

“Why am I not surprised?” Nacho asked as he crossed his legs, his left arm resting on the back of the bench, around Jade.

“I should start handing out rehab brochures and Jesus packets with this crank, I think,” Jade smiled, finding out the shake flavor was strawberry.

Nacho sighed, “I’d laugh, but you’re probably serious.”

“Nah,” Jade shook her head, pausing to take another sip from her shake. “I’m not religious,” she added but didn’t bother denying she’d start handing out rehab brochures.

“You sure?” Nacho rose an eyebrow at her. Jade wondered if he was going to lecture her if his crucifix bracelet was anything to go by. Instead, he blindsided her with, “You’re not one of those crazy Catholic girls?”

Jade’s mouth fell open, playing up how offended she was. “‘Crazy Catholic girls’?” she quoted him. “I’m so offended— You’re kidding me, right?” Jade asked, making a show of scooting away from him on the bench.

“Long hair—”

“So?”

“—you party way too hard—”

“No, I don’t!”

“—and you’ve had like eighty boyfriends,” Nacho continued despite Jade’s interjections.

“I haven’t slept with all of them!”

Nacho laughed at her, a full, toothy smile consuming his face. “Sure,” was all he said in response, knowing it’d only rile Jade up more.

“I’ve slept with three guys, two of them you’ve met. Fucking crazy catholic girl. You’re an ass, you know that?” Jade punctuated her question with a sip from her milkshake.

Nacho shook his head with a shrug. “No. Never been called an ass before, ever,” he lied, and Jade rolled her eyes at him.

“Why are you here? Are you giving me more shit, or did you just feel like aggravating me?” Jade questioned him. “Carlos was literally here an hour ago.”

“I had some free time and felt like spending it with you,” Nacho answered instead, before pointing to her strawberry milkshake. “Even brought you that.”

Jade rose her eyebrow at him before looking to the milkshake. “Wait, seriously?” she asked, immediately suppressing a sudden warmth spreading in her chest. Nacho had to have an ulterior motive for wanting to hang out with her. Maybe Domingo had called him after she had panicked? Then again, that was only ten or fifteen minutes ago.

“Yeah,” Nacho told her, looking sincere. Jade kept her eyebrow raised for a moment before frowning and pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. She didn’t say anything to Nacho as she flipped it open, selected her contacts, and then called Domingo again.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Like before, it only rang once before he answered.

“Domingo, there’s some creep here that won’t leave me alone—” Jade started, unable to stop herself from smiling. Nacho quickly pulled her phone away from her hand, holding it up to his own ear.

“Chill, it’s just me,” Nacho stated immediately, obviously having to calm Domingo down. Jade, taking another drink from her shake, decided to move closer to Nacho again. It was both to show she wasn’t agitated at him and also to see if she could hear Domingo on the other end. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. “She’s okay, yeah. I brought her a milkshake, and I think it offended her somehow.”

“Bullshit, you called me a crazy Catholic girl,” Jade spoke up, hoping Domingo would hear her. In response, Nacho switched her phone from his left ear to his right, further away from her.

“Yeah, she’s good. Said Carlos was just here?” Nacho kept his conversation with Domingo up, ignoring Jade. “A lot of traffic today?” he asked after another moment, and though the question wasn’t directed to her, Jade still shook her head.

Nacho was silent for a few seconds, listening to whatever Domingo was telling him on the other line. Since his right hand was now occupied with Jade’s cell phone, and his left was once again free. He draped his arm across the back of the bench once more, around Jade. It was such a comfortably smooth movement that Jade doubted he even realized what he was doing, or at least he didn’t care. That’s what Jade told herself, anyway. It was just a comfortable way for him to sit, he wasn’t putting his arm around her, specifically. Just like he hadn’t put his arm around her at Emilio’s party.

“I’m going to take her off your hands,” Nacho stated. Jade, still drinking her milkshake and telling herself that Nacho didn’t like her in that way, had her attention pulled back to the current moment. Well, that was good, at least. She wouldn’t freak herself out every ten minutes while sitting alone on her bench in the dark. The sun had barely set half an hour ago.

“Also, hey,” Nacho added after Jade assumed Domingo had agreed to Jade quitting early. “That last guy you sent over? Cut him off.”

“Hey, why?” Jade asked him quickly, pulling her milkshake away from her lips. Apparently, Domingo had asked the same question.

“No, he wasn’t. Just do it, okay?” Nacho answered Domingo instead of Jade. “Cool. See you in five,” Nacho pulled Jade’s phone away from her ear, ending the call and flipping it closed before handing it back to her.

“Why?” Jade asked him again, accepting her phone back. She shoved it into her jacket pocket again.

“Thought you convinced him to go to rehab?” Nacho responded, and Jade realized he was right.

“Well… Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Jade figured it shouldn’t matter if Domingo cut Sonny off. He’d never see them again like he said. “Thanks, Nacho.”

“Just don’t keep convincing everyone to quit. Domingo still needs junkies,” Nacho stood up from his bench. “C’mon,” he nodded to his van across the street, and Jade stood as well before following Nacho away from her bench.

He led her to the passenger side of his van and opened the door for Jade to get in. He paused for a second after she had climbed in and pulled her seatbelt over her chest, before asking, “If I ask you something, will you get offended?”

“I already am offended,” Jade stated.

“What two guys?” he asked anyway, and Jade rolled her eyes before sticking the straw of her milkshake in her mouth. She wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not and decided on the latter when he gave her a teasing smile and shut the door.

~-----~

“So… more ice cream?” Jade asked Nacho, glancing over from the passenger seat. He had pulled into the parking lot of a Mexican ice cream shop, El Griego Guiñador, before cutting the engine to his van, pulling the keys out. He looked over to her, and then to the half-finished milkshake in her hands. “What are we doing?” she asked him.

“I’ll show you in a sec,” Nacho told her before slipping out the driver’s side of the van. Jade unbuckled her seatbelt and took another sip of her milkshake as she waited for Nacho to open her door, and when he did, he helped her out. “Follow me,” he told her, and, to Jade’s slight surprise, he led her around the back of the shop instead.

Jade was reminded of when he had first taken her to El Michoacáno the very first time they had “hung out.” He led her to a back door and knocked twice with his fist. Jade stood silent behind him, milkshake held in her hands. A few seconds passed, and Jade was about to ask what was going on before she saw a small window in the door slide open then shut. After the door was unlocked and swung open to reveal Arturo.

“Hey?” he greeted Nacho before looking to Jade, who smiled. “¿Qué pasa?”

“Traje algo de ayuda,” Nacho stated in Spanish as Arturo stepped aside. Jade followed Nacho into the back of the ice cream shop, before realizing that it looked nothing like the back of an ice cream shop. Instead, it was a small room with a window AC rattling away, a table with several chairs, and another smaller table holding face masks, rubber gloves, and water bottles. There was also a television mounted to the ceiling and an expensive radio system setup. The only other entrance to the room looked like an industrial freezer door, and Jade wondered if this was some sort of secret place.

“¿Ella sabe cómo cortar?” Arturo asked, looking to Jade as he closed and locked the door behind them.

“What?” she asked him. “You can talk to me in English, I don’t mind,” she added.

“You know how to cut meth?” Arturo asked, and Jade was suddenly confused. Her eyebrows furrowed as she turned to Nacho, sharing her confusion with him as well.

“Uh, no,” she answered, “You told me I couldn’t, I’d fuck it up.”

“I’m teaching you,” Nacho shrugged.

“Uh, why?” Jade asked as Arturo returned to the table. He sat down in front of a scale and the familiar supplement bottle and canister of Nido milk powder.

“Because a couple of our guys got picked up. Arturo’s the only one who can do this right now,” Nacho explained, pulling several gloves out of a box, before grabbing two face masks.

“So, you’re going to have me help?” Jade remained rooted where she stood, looking between Nacho and Arturo. He had on the same blue gloves and had pulled a face mask of his own up over his nose.

“Unless you want to go back to your bench?” Nacho shrugged, and that got Jade to step forward and join him across the table from Arturo. She set her milkshake down as Nacho sat next to Jade, and he handed her a pair of gloves and a mask of her own.

“Is there a reason for the mask?” she asked Nacho. She wanted to point out that he wasn’t wearing one a few months back at El Michoacáno. Jade didn’t know if she should say anything about that in front of Arturo because of the circumstances. She didn’t want to risk Arturo’s potential questioning, which could lead to Nacho secretly slinging OxyContin behind the cartel’s backs.

“The room is small, and the ventilation is shit,” Arturo answered her this time. He didn’t bother to look up from his scale. He was using a razor blade to dump small piles of off-white powder onto it.

“It gets dusty quick if you aren’t careful,” Nacho added, and Jade accepted the mask after pulling on the gloves, which were too big for her. She listened to Nacho explain the measurements and the four-two-one ratio for the powders. After, he showed her a neat trick for easily separating the supplement capsules. Then, Jade struggled for the next three hours to actually bag the powder and have everything weigh what it was supposed to. The cartel apparently included bag weight in their product, and Jade quickly found that three-point-three-eight-one was a very tedious number to weigh out.

After the first three hours, even with Arturo putting on music and making small talk with Nacho in Spanish, they had both been much more productive than Jade. Still, she managed to help finish off a kilo of the product with the guys. Despite the hundreds of baggies, Nacho only estimated it lasting just short of the end of the week.

“So, that means I’m helping with this now?” Jade asked Nacho as they walked back to his van around midnight.

“You hate this more than the bench?” Nacho asked her, opening up the passenger door of his van for her.

“It’s more boring,” Jade admitted, brushing off some white powder on her shirt before climbing into Nacho’s van. Mentally she reminded herself that she should probably do her own laundry before her mom got to it. She doubted her mom would know what meth dust looked like, but didn’t want to risk the questions.

“This is temporary. It won’t be every day, either,” Nacho tried reassuring her.

“Sure. Next, I’ll be helping count drops or smuggling drugs across the border,” she teased, and Nacho shook his head, shutting the door of his van.

~-----~

It had been a slow night. Domingo was only texting her about every half hour if that. Nacho was more responsive, and Jade knew that he was at the strip club with Tuco and the other guys. She figured this was a waste of time. Jade kept considering telling Domingo that, but wasn’t sure how without coming across as bratty or whiny.

She thought she heard a car door shut and looked around the street. Jade couldn’t wear her headphones on her bench anymore, not after Dylan had shown up. It wasn’t like he had really tried sneaking up on her, but the ordeal, in general, made her too jumpy to have music blasting in her ears. She just didn’t want to risk it.

When Jade figured the car door was nothing, she turned back to the teal Game Boy Color in her hands. Only seconds later, however, she heard movement behind her.

“Give me your shit,” she heard from behind her, and Jade jumped in her seat on the bench, turning around to find none other but Sonny.

“What?” she asked him, thinking he was joking. That was before Jade realized he was holding a gun in his hand. He was holding it at his side in a nonthreatening manner, but Jade’s eyes were still drawn to it. “I thought you were going to rehab—?”

“Look,” he stopped her, “I’m sorry about this, but I’m serious. Give me your shit.”

“Uh,” Jade’s eyes flashed to the gun in his hand again. “I don’t— I don’t understand,” Jade told him, the situation hadn’t quite clicked for her again. She thought about checking her phone to see if Domingo had text her that Sonny was showing up, but didn’t want to reach into her pockets.

“All your shit. The meth, the money, all of it,” Sonny rose his voice slightly. He motioned at her with the gun in his hand, but still wasn’t exactly pointing it at her.

She wanted to ask him why he wasn’t in rehab like he said. She wanted to ask him if Domingo knew he was there. She wanted to ask if he was serious. Instead, Jade reached into her jacket’s pocket and pulled out a baggie of meth, handing it to him in silence.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked quietly, sounding like he was speaking more to himself than to Jade before he actually did point the gun at her.

“Whoa, dude, take it!” Jade practically threw the eight ball at him.

“Get up,” Sonny told her, catching the baggie with his free hand as it hit his chest. “Jade, stand up right now,” he added with a more assertive tone.

“Okay, okay, chill,” she did as he told her, and he moved around the bench, stuffing the one eight ball into his pants pocket before he reached for the zipper on Jade’s hoodie. “What are you doing?” she asked him as he yanked it down before tugging it off of her. Jade stumbled out of the jacket before turning around to watch him, her back against the no parking sign near her bench. Sonny was quickly searching the two pockets. “I mean, are you serious?”

“Don’t I look fucking serious?” he asked her. Sonny took the rest of the eight balls from her jacket and shoved them into his own pockets before he found the OxyContin pills. He took a second to look them over like he wasn’t sure what they were, before shoving them into his pocket as well. After, he tossed her jacket onto the bench.

“What else? What’s in your pockets?” Sonny asked, and Jade could only manage to shake her head. “Jade, don’t do this,” Sonny prompted her with his gun again. “You don’t want me to search your pockets, you do it.”

“Sonny, look—” Jade started, but Sonny stepped towards her quickly, again pointing the gun at her as he grabbed a fist full of the material on her band shirt, pulling her away from the signpost. “This is a bad idea— hey!” she tried to convince him, but was afraid to push him away while his gun was pressing into her collarbone. Instead, she could only watch while he pulled out the cash she had made so far that night from her jean pockets. After the first, he reached into her second, and Jade felt his hand close around the gun Nacho had given her. He quickly pulled it out before taking a step back from Jade. She silently watched him check the magazine to find that it was loaded.

“Jesus Christ, kid. Seriously?” he asked before shoving the gun into the waistband of his own pants. “This is why you had that asshole stalking you,” Sonny told her like he was disappointed. Jade couldn’t respond, she was still having trouble processing what he was doing.

“Is that it?” he prompted after a moment, and Jade nodded before Sonny’s eyes turned to the bench she had been sitting at moments before. He didn’t say anything to her as he grabbed both her Game Boy and her cell phone.

“Sonny?” she questioned him as he walked past the bench and back towards the street corner. “Hey!” she called louder, but he didn’t respond. “Sonny!” she yelled after him, suddenly less confused and more upset. Sure, him taking the crystal, pills, and cash she had was terrible, but they weren’t necessarily hers. “Seriously, what the hell are you doing?” she followed him around the corner and down the street a little way towards Menaul Boulevard, where a beat-up, old car was parked.

“Listen, kid,” he spoke to her without turning around to look at her. “Go home and stay off the streets. Anyone else would have shot you by now,” he told her before he opened the car door and sat in the driver’s seat. At that point, he finally looked at her, meeting her eyes as she walked up to the same side of the car. “Do something with your life besides sitting on a bench selling crank for Domingo. You still have that chance.”

Jade didn’t have a chance to respond to him as he closed the car door and started the engine, one of the belts squealing loudly from under the rusting hood. She watched him drive away but couldn’t think about his words. Instead, she only thought about how pissed Nacho and Domingo were going to be. Jade reached for her pocket out of habit, intending to call Nacho and let him know what happened, but immediately remembered that Sonny had just taken her phone. He stole literally everything she had but her clothes.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jade asked the empty street, placing her hands on her head. She didn’t know what to do. Eventually, Nacho, or more likely Domingo, would come by to see why she stopped responding to texts and calls, but who knows how long that’d actually be. She couldn’t even check what time it was.

Jade was overcome with a sense of helplessness, feeling violated by what had just happened. On top of that, she was still angry at Sonny. Her anxiety was snowballing over how Domingo and Nacho (especially Nacho) would react.

Jade, growing cold form not having her jacket on and just standing on the curb in the dark, decided to return to the bench. At least Sonny had left that with her. Jade quickly returned to her bench, pulling the jacket back on and zipping it up fully while trying to breathe in deeply and calm herself down. She needed to call Nacho, and quickly remembered the payphone at the Circle K down the street that she had used a few weeks back to call the cops for Domingo. Did she remember Nacho’s phone number, though? She sure as hell couldn’t remember Domingo’s, but she did text Nacho enough. Then again, she wasn’t typing out his number each time she text him. Two-four-two… six hundred something? Sixty eighty? There was definitely a six and an eight.

“Goddamnit,” Jade sighed, her hands on top of her head against she stared down the street like it would suddenly display Nacho’s phone number. She had to do something, she couldn’t just wait there, especially if Domingo kept sending pill junkies and tweakers to her.

Jade started walking towards the convenience store, figuring she’d have to bum change from someone. All she’d need was a quarter or two, but that was if she could correctly guess Nacho’s number from her memory.

Jade arrived at the Circle K a few minutes later. She eyed the payphone on the side of the building, remembering what Domingo had told her to say to the emergency operator. Jade reminded herself not to think about Dylan or what Nacho had done to him.

Getting a couple quarters from a stranger was harder than she thought it would be. Though she usually had no issues talking with people that she didn’t know, asking for spare change was embarrassing. Especially with the dirty looks that she was getting while standing outside the front of the convenience store. Jade could barely get a timid “hi” out, let alone, “hey, can I have fifty cents?”. To make thing’s worse, it was literally only two quarters she needed, but what if she accidentally called the wrong number and wasted it?

Jade didn’t know how long she had been trying to get a stranger to give her change outside the Circle K before she gave up, it could have been five minutes, or it could have been an hour. The last lady she managed to ask didn’t even respond, she just scoffed before walking inside to complain about her to the clerk. She wasn’t the first. At least two other people had very obviously complained about her, and Jade’s eyes kept falling back onto the plainly visible “No Loitering” sign.

Suddenly, she wondered if the clerk had just called the cops on her instead of telling Jade to get lost herself. It’s not like she had anything on her anyways to get arrested, but she didn’t want to take the chance. Even telling Nacho and Domingo, she had to deal with cops on top of getting jumped was enough of a deterrent for Jade to stop her endeavor for two quarters.  
Instead, she opted for something more direct but, most likely, more stupid; she went inside the Circle K.

“Hey, do you have a phone I can use really quick?” she asked the clerk before the lady could say anything to her.

“Look, a cruiser is already on its way,” the clerk gave Jade a weary look.

“I literally just need a phone for three seconds, and I’ll get your of your hair,” Jade explained, trying to smile despite having just been told that the cops had indeed been called on her.

“There’s a payphone outside,” the clerk stated blandly, and whatever smile Jade had been able to muster was quickly lost.

“I need quarters to use it, and I can’t seem to bum them off anyone here,” Jade told her flat out, before adding, “Unless you can give me two?”

“Can’t open the till. Its better you just get lost kid,” the clerk sighed.

It was the second time that night, Jade had been called a kid, and she tried not to flinch. “Look, I’m having a shitty night, and I’ll leave right after I can call my friend to come get me,” Jade explained, but the older woman stayed silent for a moment.

“You think I don’t drive past you every day on that bench of yours?” she asked Jade, who quickly froze.

“Wh—what?” she barely got the question out of her mouth, looking the woman over. Bleach blonde hair, premature wrinkles, yellowing teeth, bony frame. Jade figured she’d remember someone who looked like the clerk; then again, that was a good description for most of the women she dealt with.

“You’re ruining lives on that corner, you know that?”

Jade could only blink in response before taking a step back from the counter, now worried. Not only about the cops but about what this woman apparently knew she was doing. If this convenience store clerk recognized her, who else would? Was her bench not as inconspicuous as Nacho and Domingo made it out to be?

“I—I don’t know what you mean,” Jade quickly decided to play dumb.

“What happened anyway? You hardly ever come down here. Did some junkie finally jack you?” the woman crossed her arms from behind the counter.

Instead of answering, Jade decided that maybe it was best if she left altogether. She could try bumming some change off people somewhere else. Quickly, Jade turned around and made for the doors, but the woman stopped her.

“Wait, hold on,” she sighed again. Jade, with her hands on the handle of one of the doors, looked back at her. The clerk had grabbed a pack of cigarettes from behind her, rang it up, then pulled her own wallet out. “Here,” she said while making herself change, paying for the cigarettes with a five-dollar bill. She slid four quarters out of the till, before holding her hand out towards Jade.

For a moment, Jade thought it might be some sort of trap like she was a mouse, and the quarters were a slice of cheese placed on a mousetrap. “I may not look it, but I was young and stupid once too,” the clerk explained, and Jade slowly turned back around to accept the quarters. “You still have time to fix that. Stop doing whatever it is you’re doing and… go to school or something. Or go find some rich asshole doctor and marry him.”

Still silent, Jade stuck the four quarters in her jacket pocket, but she kept eye contact with the clerk. “You don’t want to end up forty-three and working night shifts at a Circle K. You still have time, fix yourself.”

“Thanks,” Jade said quietly, thinking on the woman’s words before reminding herself that the cops were on their way, and she still had to call Nacho. She turned around and quickly left the store, heading for the payphone.

She stopped in front of it, quarters in her right hand and her left on the receiver, but paused when she saw the number pad. What was Nacho’s number? Five-oh-five two-four-two… “Shit,” Jade sighed to herself, placing the black receiver on its hook. She had four quarters, so she had two tries but was worried she’d waste them both.

Knowing she was short on time before a cop showed up to kick her off the property, Jade then thought about calling Corey or Joel to get Nacho’s number from them. Then again, how badly would that turn out, calling her ex to get her new crush’s number?

“Jesus,” Jade bounced on the balls of her feet a couple times, starting to feel panicked. She hadn’t even thought about what she was going to say to Nacho, “Hey, I got jumped, come get me”?

Jade put the quarters back in her pocket before placing both hands on top of her head again, looking around the Circle K parking lot. What was she even supposed to do after? What if Nacho couldn’t come to get her this time? Even if he did, how long would it take him?

Jade was staring out at the street intersecting with her own sleepy side street and noticed, stopped at a red light, a city bus. Jade realized she had a dollar in her pocket, she could just get on the bus and go to Nacho. She wouldn’t risk calling two wrong numbers, or` having an awkward conversation with Corey or Joel, and she’d be gone form the Circle K before the cops showed up.

Quickly deciding, Jade started off running for the closest bus stop before the light could turn green, and the bus could pass. Within the next minute, she was boarding the city bus. Jade dropped the four quarters the clerk had given her into the money slot before taking out her temporary bus pass from the machine. After, she shoved it into her pocket and walked to the back of the bus, mentally plotting how to get to downtown from the bus line she was on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Tienes qué estar bromeando.” — You’ve got to be kidding me.
> 
> “¿Qué pasa?” — What’s up?
> 
> “Traje algo de ayuda.” — I bought some help.
> 
> “¿Ella sabe cómo cortar?” — She knows how to cut? (We didn’t know the Spanish colloquialism for “cutting meth/drugs”, couldn’t find anything with some first page Google searches, so we went with the literal “cutting” translation.)
> 
> So, uh... mini cliff hanger? Maybe? That last scene was originally the first scene of the next chapter but without it this chapter was tiny, and the next one was like bordering 13k. In all honesty, it's not even done yet, and this is the first time in months where I haven't had at least a chapter cushion between updates 😅. It's coming along though, so I should have it out in the next two weeks per usual.
> 
> In other news I started editing this to fix some canonical errors and general "meh" writing. I've only got the first chapter re-posted so far but I have the first few have been edited/fixed already in my Scrivner document. That's why Domingo is suddenly "Sunday" in Jade's phone (if that hasn't shown up before) and why Jade is dealing powder meth instead of crystal, if anyone was confused. I don't think any of the edits warrant a re-read, but if the word count is slowly climbing between actual chapter updates, that's why.
> 
> Lastly, as always, thank you guys so much for all the love last chapter, even if we're in the middle of slowburn hell ❤ And a huge thanks to my boyfriend for the translations and beta reading.


	18. Downtown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst night of Jade's life comes to a climax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Allie X's song "Downtown".
> 
> This chapter is a ridiculous 30 novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 54 minutes to read. We've officially passed 150K words, too. You guys are seriously dedicated, I'm in awe.
> 
> Per usual, the spoiler warning for Season 1 of Better Call Saul remains in effect. There are no other content warnings for this chapter besides the tiniest mention of blood.
> 
> *(05/25/2020) I've also had a few comments about this chapter causing anxiety (in a good way) but I wanted to add this in with the warnings just in case*
> 
> All Spanish is translated in the notes below.

Since it was a Saturday night, Downtown Albuquerque was crawling with people. Jade kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself, and kept her eyes down, trying not to draw attention to her person as she sped walked towards the strip club. She half wondered, during the short walk, what would happen if someone tried to mug her again. After Sonny, she literally had nothing left but her shoes and clothes. Thankfully, nobody paid her much attention. She did get a few strange looks from people due to walking as fast as she was, but looks were harmless.

Jade only stopped when she reached the lot of the strip club. She stared at the guarded entrance for a moment before her eyes found several familiar vehicles. She saw Carlos’ Fire Bird, Arturo’s Oldsmobile, and Nacho’s Chevy van. Her eyes ended up lingering on Tuco’s blue Pontiac for a minute or two. She knew full well Tuco was going to be at the club with Nacho, she just hadn’t prepared herself to see him again after her last encounter when he had split her fingers open.

“Okay,” Jade sighed quietly to herself before looking back to the bouncer standing outside. She realized then that she had somehow caught his attention, and he was staring back. “Great.”

Jade forced herself forward, and once she was within earshot of the bouncer she started with, “Hey, look—”

“Get lost, kid,” he cut her off gruffly.

“Uh…” Jade tried, losing her cadence and her false sense of confidence. He wasn’t even overtly mean or angry, and Jade’s immediate response to his words had her wanting to burst into tears. “Look, I know you’re doing your job—”

“You deaf? I said, take a hike.”

“— b-but, uh, I need to get inside for a sec. N-not for tits or booze, just, uh…”

“Last warning, get lost,” the bouncer squared his shoulders, and Jade tried not to shrink or step back.

“I need to talk to Tuco Salamanca,” she stated, hoping that the namedrop would at least calm him down.

“Salamanca?” the bouncer asked her, and Jade crossed her arms. It seemed to work, at least briefly.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Jade confirmed, trying to sound impatient.

“How do you know the Salamancas?”

Jade took a second to take a deep breath. Did she know the Salamancas? Did she even know Tuco? “I work for them. Tuco’s my boss,” Jade told the bouncer.

“Why the hell’re you here if you need to talk to Tuco? Why don’t you call him?” the bouncer asked her next.

“I don’t have a phone on me. Give me yours, and I’ll just call him,” Jade held her hand out, hoping that she could squeeze Nacho’s number out of her brain. That was the whole reason she decided not to call him from the payphone in the first place. The bouncer stared at her like he didn’t believe her story. “Fine, I’ll just stay out here until he leaves and talk to him then. We’ll see how pissed he is when I tell him you made me wait,” Jade recrossed her arms, watching the bouncer’s eyes narrow and his jaw clench.

“We can see if he leaves first or if the cops come first. Your choice,” the bouncer responded finally, and Jade’s tough facade nearly cracked in half with the mention of cops.

“No,” she shook her head, realizing it had to be a bluff. If Tuco and the Salamanca name really did mean anything to the club, they wouldn’t call the cops. “It’s yours,” she added before moving to the side and sitting down next to the door. She didn’t have anything left on her anyway; worst-case scenario, the cops would laugh at a nineteen-year-old girl trying to get into a strip club and tell her to go.

Jade’s stubbornness paid off, and after a short while, with the bouncer letting several more people in and out of the club, he snapped in Jade’s direction to get her attention. “Get inside,” he pointed to the open door, and Jade barely hesitated before standing up and pushing past him into the club.

How dark and loud it was inside was a shock to Jade, and she stood near the entrance for a second, wondering how she was supposed to find Nacho. Maybe she could ask someone?

Jade realized then that asking meant walking up to yet another bouncer, stopping a stripper, or going up to the bartender, and none of those options seemed palatable.

Resigning herself to wandering around the club until she saw one of the guys, or even Tuco himself, Jade started forward. Not even a few steps into her journey, she felt a body collide with hers and something freezing cold soak through her jacket.

“Oh my god!” Jade gasped. She looked down, realizing that some guy’s beer was all over the front of her hoodie. Just when she thought the night couldn’t get any worse.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” the guy asked her, immediately angry like she had been the one to run into him.

“What? Dude—” Jade started to argue back, finding her fuse cut short by everything she had already dealt with that night. She didn’t feel like she wanted to cry anymore. Honestly, she wanted to hit something, preferably this asshole.

“Baby, it’s okay. The bartender will get you another one,” a woman stated, quickly weaseling herself between Jade and the guy. Jade watched the guy immediately cool off as she woman, a stripper Jade told herself, pushed him towards the bar. She was in a skimpy triangle top and a piece of fabric that barely passed as a skirt.

“Are you alright?” she asked Jade, turning around once the guy had seemed to forget what had just happened.

“Uh, yeah,” Jade sighed, unzipping her hoodie, only to find her teeshirt soaked through as well and sticking to the skin over her stomach.

“What are you doing in here? You’re not looking for a boyfriend, are you?” the stripper asked her.

“Uh, no— Actually, I am looking for someone, though? Tuco? Salamanca?” Jade figured, why not ask. It was apparent her previous plan of wandering was a no go. Apparently, he was here a lot, and Jade doubted the name wouldn’t be familiar.

“Oh no,” the stripper’s face immediately fell, and Jade felt a short burst of panic flood her heart.

“What?” she questioned, “What’s ‘oh no’?”

“Are you new? What are you wearing under that?” she asked her, and Jade looked down at her baggy jeans and zip-up jacket.

“I’m not—” Jade started, thinking she was starting to put two and two together. “I sell drugs for him— or I mean for Nacho. I’m actually looking for Nacho,” Jade tried bluntly clarifying, and watched the stripper’s shoulders fall slightly as she smiled again.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry. I thought you were a new prostitute or something,” she laughed.

“Nope, just a… meth dealer…” Jade tried smiling back.

“That explains why you look so out of place. C’mon, Nacho, you said? All the boys are in the VIP lounge.”

“All?” Jade asked as the stripper tried leading her along somewhere. She thought back to the vehicles she had recognized. “Who all is ‘all the boys’?”

“Oh, Nacho, Tuco, Carlos, Arturo, Javier. All the boys, you know?” she answered, and Jade felt her anxiety worsening over this suddenly stupid decision of hers. Why didn’t she just hope that she remembered Nacho’s number and call him? “Don’t be shy, it’s okay. It’s getting late, so most of them are sauced by now,” the stripper waived Jade along after her.

Silently, with her beer-soaked hoodie in her hands, Jade forced herself to walk along after the stripper. She was led past a bar and several small crowds surrounding different stages with poles. They entered a hallway that was lined with several more private booths, and at the end was a room curtained off with pink and purple beads, the wall above stating “VIP.”

“They should be just in here,” she stopped, and Jade took another couple of steps forward, craning her neck to peek through the beads before immediately recoiling. In a split second, she looked and saw the guys that the stripper had mentioned minus Tuco (assuming the unknown guy she saw was this Javier). There were also about six girls in the room. One of them was sitting on Nacho’s lap, and he had his hand on her ass. The sight made Jade feel immediately ill.

“Oh god, I can’t—” Jade backed up quickly, “I can’t go in there,” she looked back to the stripper.

“You sure you’re not here looking for your boyfriend?” she asked, and Jade quickly shook her head.

“What? No, I’m not—we aren’t together. He’s my boss,” Jade explained, “It’s just, like, there’s a bunch of people in there and just…” he’ll be so pissed, Jade thought but didn’t finish her sentence. “I’m good, I’m okay, thanks,” she said, noticing the slightly irritated look from the stripper. She nodded at Jade, her arms crossed before she turned and walked back the way they had come.

Left alone, Jade tried telling herself that it was fine and that Nacho would rather have her do what she was doing and come to him instead of just waiting at the bench with more and more skells showing up. Jade tried squaring her shoulders then, despite the fabric of her shirt sticking coldly to her stomach and her beer-soaked hoodie in her hands. She was attempting to look more confident than she felt. Still, as she parted the beads and quietly stepped into the VIP room, that facade cracked and fell apart immediately.

“Jade?” Arturo had noticed her first since he was one of the few facing the entrance. 

“Um,” she couldn’t even find a quick “hey” in her to greet him with.

“Jade? What?” Carlos whipped his head to his right, looking over Gonzo and a couple of girls between them.

Trying to force a greeting out, Jade sucked in a breath before she noticed Nacho literally shove the girl off his lap so he could jump to his feet.

“I—uh, I—” she started, noticing the half bewildered half-angry look on his face just before he grabbed onto her arm. Nacho pulled her out of the room, the pink and purple beads swinging wildly behind them. “Uh, Nacho?” she tried starting again as he pulled her off into one of the empty private rooms, curtained off by the same beads.

“What are you doing here?” He asked her quickly, finally letting her go once they were in the small room. Nacho stayed in front of the doorway, crossing his arms. Jade backed herself up against the round table and pole in the center of the room. His tone made her stomach, which was already in anxious knots, drop. Nacho looked utterly disconcerted that she was standing in front of him.

“Uh—I, uh, I’m sorry—” she started, but Nacho was quick to cut her off.

“Jade, what are you doing here?” Nacho pressed, and Jade’s mouth went dry. She shouldn’t have come. She should have just tried calling him. She shouldn’t have come.

“I, um,” she had to clear her throat, but still couldn’t find her words. “I was, uh…” she tried starting again, but the look on Nacho’s face stopped her. She couldn’t help but think that he would only be more upset with her after she told him. In her desperation to answer, Jade set her jacket on the rounded bench seat and quickly pulled the pockets of her jeans out before shrugging, “I’m sorry.” At this point, her eyes were full of tears, and she was fighting with herself to not cry.

Jade suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands or her arms, for that matter. They felt awkward at her side, like she had never had arms before, and wasn’t sure what to do with them, at first crossing her arms before clasping her hands behind her neck. Despite this, she watched Nacho’s face soften as he understood what had happened to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked her in concern, and she quickly nodded, “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” she tried but couldn’t stop her words from turning into a sob.

“What happened to your shirt?” he asked, looking at the wet stain down the front of her shirt.

“Some jackass spilled beer on me,” she tried to explain, wiping at her cheeks though she kept crying.

Nacho quickly stepped forward towards her, starting to unbutton his own shirt. “Here, take that off,” he began, shrugging his button-up off and offering it to her. With shaking hands and flush of red on her cheeks, Jade pulled her shirt over her head. She tossed it on top of her hoodie and accepted Nacho’s shirt. She wanted to decline but couldn’t get anything but shaky breaths to leave her mouth.

When she had her arms through the sleeves, Nacho’s hands fell on her shoulders and pulled her towards him. In another heartbeat, he had his arms tightly wrapped around her in a tight hug. Jade quickly took to the comforting gesture, burying her face in his neck and clutching the back of his shirt tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she cried.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked into the side of her head while she clutched at the back of his red tank top.

“Uh-huh,” she tried, but it only sounded like a sob.

“Are you hurt? What happened?” he asked but didn’t let up his tight grip on her. “Where’s Domingo?”

“I couldn’t remember your number,” Jade admitted, not answering any of his questions. She felt him sigh into her hair.

“I’ll get you out of here, okay?” he asked a heartbeat later, pulling back to look at her face with his hand still on her shoulders. Embarrassed, Jade let go of his shirt and rubbed at her cheeks again, worried her eyeliner and mascara was running. “We should leave before Tuco comes back.”

“Okay,” Jade nodded, wondering where Tuco was. She didn’t voice her question and instead sniffed as she started buttoning up Nacho’s shirt with trembling hands. He finally let go of her and turned around, ducking behind the bead curtain. Jade finished buttoning up Nacho’s shirt before stuffing her pockets back into her jeans, picking up her own teeshirt and jacket, and hesitantly following him out of the private room. She didn’t know how strip clubs worked and didn’t want anyone wandering in while she waited for Nacho to come back for her.

Jade made her way back towards the VIP room, seeing the pink and purple beads sway after Nacho had walked in. Not wanting to step back into the room herself, she stayed a few feet away in the hall, waiting for Nacho to reemerge.

“Nena?” a voice came from behind her, and she quickly spun around, her heartbeat immediately spiking from the sound.

“Uh, hey Tuco,” Jade struggled to put on her happy-go-lucky attitude she always had during her Tuesdays at El Michoacáno. If anything, she may have looked panicked.

“No mames,” he laughed, “Jade, nena, what are you doing here? You came to party?”

“Uh—” Jade tried not to tense or flinch away as he hugged her. There was a stripper following him who looked to have recently wiped off her lipstick, and Tuco’s belt was hanging undone below the hem of his shirt.

“I, um,” she didn’t know what to say to him. “No, I was—”

“You’re looking for Nacho,” he stated, looking down at Nacho’s shirt that she was wearing.

“I was actually just leaving,” Jade forced a smile, but it fell as soon as Tuco wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the VIP room.

“No, you don’t have to go. We should kick Nacho out instead,” Tuco laughed, immediately drawing Nacho’s attention to them. It looked like he was in the middle of grabbing his things; his phone, keys, and wallet in his hands. “Mira a quién encontre. ¿Estás en problemas, ese?” Tuco added in Spanish, laughing again while Nacho’s eyes darted between Tuco and Jade, who was still caught under his arm.

“Ella, uh, nos íbamos,” Nacho responded, and she saw his eyes dart to Carlos, who looked about as unsettled as he and Jade were.

Somehow missing that expression, Tuco pulled Jade down onto a seat next to him and another stripper. Jade quickly realized that the safest place for her eyes was on her Adidas sneakers while she tried to take up as little space as possible.

“Ella aparece de la nada, y de repente, ¿tienes que irte?” Tuco questioned, his arm still around Jade’s stiff shoulders. 

“Ella… Jade got jumped,” Nacho admitted, and Jade was surprised that he decided to go with the truth. She glanced up to him, but Tuco’s head whipped around to face her, and her focus changed to him instead.

“You what?” he was immediately angry, and Jade tried to snuff out the voice in her head, telling her that she was going to die.

“W—we were— It’s fine, Tuco, we’re taking care of it,” Jade tried to smile at him, but Tuco was growing furious.

“You’re fine?” he asked her, before jumping back to his feet and rounding on Nacho again, “Some bitch jumped your girl, and you’re saying it’s fine?”

“I can handle it,” Nacho tried to reassure Tuco, his voice level versus the rage Tuco was emitting.

“She came here, to me,” Tuco pointed at himself, and Jade held her tongue. Arguing with Tuco couldn’t help the situation any. “What happened?” Tuco looked back to her, and Jade tried sinking further back into her seat.

She wanted to tell him it was fine again, that Nacho really was handling it, that she had just overreacted. She honestly thought that now, coming here to the strip club was one colossal overreaction. “I came here to get Nacho— they took my phone— he was gonna drop me off at his place. We were just leaving,” Jade tried, wondering if just flat out telling him the truth would help.

“So you were gonna go fuck the bitch up then?” Tuco asked, looking back to Nacho.

“Are we gonna go find this bitch?” No-Doze asked before standing up.

“Fuck yeah we are, no one fucks with Jade,” Arturo stood as well, with a few of the other guys. She realized that the truth may not have been her best option. Now, Jade had a group of angry cartel dealers chasing after Sonny instead of just Nacho and Domingo. Jade looked back to Nacho, trying to apologize with only her eyes, and she saw him inwardly sigh. He still had his keys in his hand and started working his van key off the key ring.

“Carlos, talk her to my place. We’ll meet you there,” Nacho said, handing the keyring to Jade. Without a word, Carlos stood up from his seat quickly.

“Come on,” he glanced at Jade before walking out of the VIP room. Hastily, she jumped up and followed Carlos out, without so much as a bye or even a glance at Tuco or Nacho.

“Carlos, hey,” she started, trying to catch up with his quick strides. Jade shoved Nacho’s keys in her pocket and caught up to him at the entrance of the strip club. “Carlos?” She wanted to know what was going on, but the bouncer outside stole her opportunity to ask.

“Hey,” he stopped them as they entered the parking lot.

“Jesus Christ, what now?” Jade shot back at him, wondering if he was going to warn her not to show up again as if she ever wanted to in the first place.

The bouncer rose his eyebrows at her before looking to Carlos. “Tried to get her to leave, but she insisted she knew Tuco.”

“Next time make life easier on yourself and just let her in,” Carlos shook his head before continuing on towards his Firebird.

“Hey, wait,” Jade realized he was walking away and had to catch up with him again. “What’s going on?”

“You don’t wanna tell me what’s going on?” Carlos countered as he reached the driver’s side door of his Firebird.

Jade stopped at the passenger side of the vintage car, looking over the roof at Carlos. “I—”

“You thought it was a good idea to bust in here after losing Domingo’s shit so Tuco could poke his nose into our side business?”

Jade wanted to argue that she didn’t “lose” Domingo’s shit. She wanted to say she didn’t have any other way of contacting Nacho. She wanted to say that she didn’t mention the OxyContin pills and that Tuco had no idea... But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find out.

Carlos didn’t wait too long for a response from Jade and got into the driver’s seat before turning the engine over in his car, prompting Jade to follow his lead.

~-----~

Carlos hadn’t said another word to her during the drive from the club to Nacho’s apartments. Instead, he let Jade wonder if she had fucked up in silence, or rather, under the rap music, he was blasting. When they arrived at Nacho’s apartments, he knew the code for the gated parking lot. After parking, Carlos didn’t seem surprised when Jade started off for building H on her own. She led the way up the staircase, and when she turned left at the top of the stairs, she found Domingo waiting outside Nacho’s door.

“Jesus Christ, Jade,” he started speaking before she could lead Carlos to Nacho’s door. “What happened? You quit responding to me and then Nacho’s calling me asking about you—”

“He didn’t tell you?” she asked him, realizing her question was lifeless and monotone. He didn’t respond immediately, his eyes moving from her face to Nacho’s button-up, to the beer-soaked clothes in her hands.

“¿Qué chingado?” he looked to Carlos behind her while Jade continued towards Nacho’s door. “¿Ella está bien?”

“Estamos en una mierda, mantén la calma,” Carlos responded as Jade pulled out Nacho’s key and unlocked the door marked H24.

“Jade, what happened?” Domingo asked her again as she opened the door, letting the three of them inside the dark apartment. Since Nacho wasn’t there to do it, Jade flipped the lights on for his living room and kitchen.

“Um,” she started, walking forward to set her clothes on the bar counter between the kitchen and living room. When she turned around, she found that Carlos was already sitting on the couch, and Domingo was closing the apartment door, shutting them in. “So maybe I overreacted a bit?” Jade tried to sound more alive. What Carlos had told her really made her think about her actions, and a colossal overreaction was the conclusion she had come to.

“She got jacked,” Carlos told him in English, and Domingo’s head whipped from him back to Jade.

“What?” his eyes went wide. “When—Who? What happened?” he asked her quickly, taking a step towards her.

“Look, I panicked, but I can take care of it, okay? I’ll pay you back—”

“They took the pills?” Domingo stopped her.

“Uh, yeah, but—” she asked, wondering why those were the most important, over the cash even.

“They took the pills, and you went to Tuco?” Domingo clarified.

Jade’s shoulders slumped with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I panicked, and I’m sorry. But look, I didn’t mention them, and I can take care of the money, okay?”

“Ella entró al club llorando. Tuco viene aquí, no sabe sobre las píldoras. Esperemos que no lo descubra por el tuyo y el de ella,” Carlos told Domingo in Spanish from his spot on the couch. Jade looked back at Domingo, watching his face pale at whatever Carlos had said.

Instead of trying to guess or ask what he said, Jade instead decided to ignore them and walk around the bar counter into the kitchen.

“Wh—where’s Nacho?” Domingo asked as Jade opened the cabinet, she remembered Nacho’s glasses were in. She started at them while Carlos responded.

“He’s stalling Tuco. Arturo should be here shortly with the other guys,” Carlos answered, switching back to English again. Jade wanted to call him out of it, but stayed silent, focusing instead on getting herself water. She closed the cabinet door without taking a glass and instead moved to where Nacho had his expensive mugs, grabbing one of those instead. When she moved to the fridge to get herself water, Jade heard a knock on the door of Nacho’s apartment.

She turned around in time to see that Domingo had started pacing nervously behind Nacho’s couch, and she leaned against the counter between the sink and fridge.

“¡Pasale!” Carlos shouted at the door since neither Domingo nor Jade had made a move to answer it.

“¿Qué pasa?” Arturo stuck his head in first before entering with the unnamed guy following him. “¿Ella está bien ahora?”

“Ella esta mejor, ¿donde esta Tuco?” Carlos asked from the couch, and Jade half crossed her arms, taking a drink of water from the mug.

“Viene por de atras de nosotros. Did she say what happened?”

“No,” was all Carlos responded. Jade looked to Domingo, who seemed to shrink away from the newcomers.

“Who jumped you, chica?” Arturo asked, calling her attention back to him.

“I was just telling them I overreacted and it’s all fine, I’ll take care of it—” Jade tried explaining before the unnamed guy cut her off.

“We’re here to take care of it for you. Nobody fucks with one of our girls,” he told her. Jade looked to Domingo, thinking it was weird that the guy had said “our girls” instead of “our dealers.” As far as she knew, she was one of the only female dealers for the cartel, Jade hadn’t met another “girl.”

Before anything else was said, another knock came, and Arturo turned around, opening the door without a word. “Yo, did she say who jumped her yet?” came No-Doze’s voice, announcing his and Gonzo’s presence.

“No, we were just asking,” Arturo answered, letting them both in.

“I just overreacted, it’s fine—” Jade tried stressing.

“No, we got you, girl. Nacho won’t just let this slide. Tuco won’t either,” Gonzo reassured her as if that’s what she was worried about. Silently, Jade counted the guys. Including Domingo, Nacho, and Carlos, there were currently eight cartel gangbangers who wanted Sonny’s blood. Jade felt her gut clench, thinking back to the conversation she had with him about his daughter and ex. Despite them, even, Jade couldn’t say anything because of the OxyContin Sonny had stolen.

“It’s not even— like— It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Jade tried. The men in Nacho’s living room looked at each other, sharing questioning glances.

“What do you mean?” Arturo asked her with a frown.

“I mean that I can take care of what the guy took, I don’t need—”

The door to Nacho’s living room flew open, making Jade jump and step back into the kitchen counter next to the fridge. “Who fucked you over, huh?” Tuco stormed into Nacho’s apartment, fuming. His eyes were wild, dark pits, his face was tinged red, and a few veins were popping out of his skin.

“Tuco—” Jade tried, realizing her voice was suddenly shaking as bad as her hands were. She looked to Nacho, who walked into the apartment after Tuco, looking much less angry.

“I wanna know! I want his name, I want to know where he lives, I want to know where his momma lives, I want—”

“Hey, Tuco?” Jade tried stopping him.

“She hasn’t said anything yet,” No-Doze stopped him, and Tuco looked towards him instead.

“She didn’t say anything?” Tuco questioned him before looking briefly back at Jade. After he spun around to where Nacho was lingering in the doorway. “What did she tell you? What happened?” Tuco demanded from him.

With a quick glance at Jade in his kitchen, Nacho explained, “She hasn’t told me everything yet.”

She was expecting him to cover for her maybe, make something up, not leave her open to Tuco’s wrath. “I keep trying to say I can take care of what he stole,” Jade sputtered, almost mashing her words together.

“Who was it?” Tuco asked, walking back towards the bar counter, the only thing separating him from Jade. “Tell me who jumped you, nena,” he kept demanding.

“Tuco, I can pay you back,” Jade stressed, “It’s fine— I’m fine.”

“Some pendejo took my stuff, took your stuff, and you’re saying it’s fine?” Tuco asked, no longer yelling. Instead, his voice was low, making him sound even more dangerous than he had.

She looked to Nacho again, hoping she could get some sort of answer on how to respond from him, before looking to Domingo. He seemed like he just wanted to sink into Nacho’s floor and disappear at that point. They were nervous about the Oxy, she knew that, so she couldn’t say anything.

“I don’t know who,” she looked back to Tuco, figuring that was the only answer she could give.

Tuco stared at her, intense like at El Michoacáno when he had cut her fingers and held his hand over her face. Jade felt her heart jump into her throat, and the scars on her right hand began to burn. She was afraid to look away from him, Jade was scared to even blink.

“Tell me what he looks like,” Tuco finally said after an eternity. “Describe the puta madre to me— to him,” Tuco suddenly pointed to Domingo, as if Domingo somehow knew every lowlife and addict in Albuquerque. “You dealt to him before? Tell him who jumped you!”

Jade took a deep breath, filling her lungs with so much air it was almost painful, before slowly exhaling. “I can pay you back,” she tried again, “I can double what he took—”

He wasn’t having any of it. Jade realized that it wasn’t just about the missing cash and product when Tuco started around the counter, swiftly turning into the kitchen, He backed Jade into a corner against Nacho’s pantry.

“Tuco?” Nacho spoke up finally, but Tuco didn’t seem to hear him.

“Nena, I don’t give a fuck about the cash,” Tuco tried, probably thinking he was reassuring her. Instead, as he grabbed ahold of her shoulders and lowered his head to speak eye to eye with Jade, she tensed and nearly dropped Nacho’s mug. “I don’t let anyone fuck with us. Nobody jumps one of our girls and lives.”

Jade was terrified, utterly and completely, and not only for herself but for Sonny.

“Tuco, hold on,” Nacho finally spoke up, and Jade took the chance of looking away from Tuco and to Nacho. He had also moved, stepping away from the door and was now on the other side of the bar counter. “Déjame hablar con ella,” Nacho added in Spanish before meeting Jade’s eyes and nodding towards his bedroom. Jade looked back to Tuco, understanding what the nod meant at least, but Tuco still had his hands on her shoulders, and she was nowhere near bold or brave enough to shrug his hands off. “¿Danos un segundo, okay?” Nacho directed towards Tuco, and that got the fuming man to step away from Jade. Without hesitating, she set the mug on the bar counter and ducked around Tuco and out of the kitchen. As she joined Nacho on the other side of the counter, he grabbed Jade’s hand in his own. Without looking back to her, he led her into the short hallway and then into his bedroom.

“What?” she asked him when his hand left hers, and he closed the bedroom door, shutting them in. Without Tuco in her face or the mob of angry guys in Nacho’s living room looming over her, Jade seemed to quickly regain her confidence.

“What happened?” Nacho asked her as he turned around to face her. In defense of herself, Jade crossed her arms.

“Look, I’ll pay him back for what I lost. I’ll pay for everything,” she added, hoping he knew that meant the Oxy pills. There was no way she was going to mention them by name in Nacho’s apartment with Tuco around.

He looked between her eyes for a moment. “I’ll explain this for you, okay?” he said, causing Jade’s shoulder’s to fall.

“Nacho, it’s seriously fine—” her arms fell away from her chest with a whine, but Nacho cut her off.

“It might be fine if it was just you doing your own thing. That’s a you thing, if you’re gonna let people jump you like this. But you aren’t doing this for you. You’re doing this for Domingo,” he started, and Jade tried not to roll her eyes at him; instead, she looked behind herself at Nacho’s bed and sat on the edge.

“I know that—”

“If someone can rob you, then that makes Domingo look bad, and it makes his crew look weak if word gets out,” he explained with his hands.

“Nacho—”

“And Domingo,” he pointed at his bedroom door, “he’s not doing his own thing, he’s doing this for me,” he pointed at himself after.

“So, you don’t want to look bad?” Jade asked him, her eyebrow raised.

“If I look like I can’t handle my own shit, that makes Tuco look bad, and Tuco can’t look bad. Not with all the dealers and their crews looking at him.”

Jade sighed, her shoulders falling. She had warned Sonny that robbing her was a bad idea. “This can’t be that big of a deal—!”

Nacho ran a hand down his face before looking around his room and shrugging. “What happened, then? Someone actually jacked you?” Nacho asked, and Jade was suddenly defensive.

“No, I decided to rip you off and stashed everything,” she told him sarcastically, starting to feel genuinely angry with him. “Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t tell him who jumped me because he took everything. Nacho,” Jade stressed again. She knew he understood, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Tuco’s already here, he already wants blood. We can’t avoid this,” Nacho explained to her. “You have to tell me who did this.”

“I don’t!” Jade rubbed at her face with her hands, “What if I seriously don’t know who it was?”

“This is the most difficult you’ve ever been about anything,” Nacho threw his hands into the air, shrugging as he revealed his own frustrations. “I have to be missing something… You know them, don’t you?”

“What?” Jade asked, her forehead creasing slightly in confusion.

“You know who jacked you. You’re protecting them,” Nacho stated rather than asked, making Jade’s heart sink. He waited for Jade to respond. Nacho, in her silence, crossed his arms as he stood in front of her.

“Oh, God!” Jade whined, rubbing at her face again as she fell back on the mattress. “This seriously can’t be that big of a deal! I already said I’d double what he took, and if word gets out, just beat the shit out of those guys instead!” Jade explained in exasperation to Nacho’s ceiling.

“Was it Pinkman?” Nacho asked, and Jade sat back up, quick enough to make her head spin.

“No—!” she started, but Nacho kept talking.

“You’re protecting Jesse Pinkman?” he rose his scarred eyebrow at her, his arms still crossed.

“No, I’m not!” Jade reiterated, standing up despite feeling dizzy. “No, it wasn’t Jesse, don’t say that—!”

“Corey, then?” Nacho asked, his voice still level.

“Why the fuck would Corey jump me, Nacho?” Jade actually managed to laugh, though it was humorless. “That makes no sense, he deals for Domingo also—”

“We had to cut him loose…” Nacho’s look of confusion suddenly matched Jade’s. “Don’t you talk anymore?”

“What do you mean? You what? You cut him loose?” Jade questioned him, her voice falling back to a reasonable level. Nacho’s arms fell from his chest as he stared into Jade’s eyes.

“You have no idea what happened?” Nacho asked, his tough cartel demeanor crumbled. Nacho’s entire being softened in front of her.

“What don’t I have an idea of?” Jade stressed.

“He started using,” Nacho told her, keeping his eyebrows furrowed as he watched her expression change from confusion to denial.

“That—no,” she blinked a few times before shaking her head, “That doesn’t make sense. He’s using meth? Corey doesn’t… he doesn’t…” Jade trailed off in thought. He and Joel hadn’t said anything about Corey being cut loose. Still, Jade knew he had been hanging out with Jesse and Badger, and Jade definitely knew how bad Jesse’s habit was getting thanks to supplying him.

“If you’re protecting him I can try to work something out—”

“No,” she shook her head. Her feet were telling her to move, to get out of Nacho’s bedroom, to get a phone and call Corey, but she stayed rooted. “It wasn’t him,” Jade told Nacho instead.

“Then, who? Another friend?” Nacho pushed her, and Jade plopped back onto the end of his bed.

“He’s… not really, no,” she answered that question, at least Nacho and Tuco wouldn’t go hunting down Jesse or Corey.

“What actually happened?” Nacho asked her again but sounded nowhere near as accusatory as he had the first time.

“I can’t,” Jade sighed, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. “I can’t say who it was.”

“Jade,” Nacho sighed, and with another few seconds, she felt the tips of his fingers brush her knees before sliding down to her calves over her jeans. “I’ll help out as much as I can, but I need to know who it was first.”

“He’s supposed to have quit. I don’t understand,” Jade’s hands fell away from her face. She found that Nacho was crouching in front of her now, looking up at her. “He’s supposed to be in rehab because he has a kid and his ex wouldn’t let him see his kid—” Jade had to pause to take a breath in, realizing she was starting to cry. It didn’t help. “He’s supposed to be in rehab, he said he was getting clean. I don’t know what happened or why he… It doesn’t make sense!” she sobbed, finding it hard to keep eye contact with Nacho.

“Hey,” Nacho grabbed one of her hands, “Calm down. Give me a name. Gonzo and I can talk Tuco down, okay? They won’t get hurt.”

Jade believed him, it was hard not to with how sincere he looked, but Tuco was in the other room, absolutely losing his mind. She could hear him shouting in unintelligible Spanish and in English about people ripping him off and fucking with his family.

“His… his name’s Sonny. I don’t know if that’s his real name or what his last name is,” Jade finally admitted, and Nacho nodded.

“Okay,” he told her, before standing back up, her hand still held in his. “Come here,” he pulled her off the edge of his bed, and Jade obliged, quickly standing up to hug him. His hand left hers so he could wrap his arms around her and comfort her. She clung to him, her arms squeezing around his chest as she buried her head into the crook of his neck, trying to drown out Tuco in the living room.

“Everything will be alright,” Nacho promised and, though she believed him, Jade didn’t respond. Instead, she listened as Gonzo tried reasoning with Tuco to calm him down. In another minute or two, his shouting finally stopped.

“I gotta tell the guys. You can stay in here,” Nacho told her, and Jade took that as her queue to pull back from their hug. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and chin.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him, Nacho’s hands slowly falling away from her arms.

“Try and convince Tuco that Domingo can deal with this and get him out of here. Then we’ll go talk to Sonny,” Nacho told her, his voice reassuring.

“But if he doesn’t cool off? Sonny literally took everything,” Jade stressed, still afraid to even mention the OxyContin with Tuco in the other room. Her right hand, though it was nearly healed and hadn’t hurt for the past week or two, throbbed in agreement.

“I know, it’s probably gone. I don’t care,” Nacho reassured her. “Tuco’s gonna want his product back, probably his cash if we can find it. I’ll try to get your phone too. Did you have anything else?”

“My Game Boy,” Jade nodded quickly. At that moment, she was starting to believe that Nacho could actually handle this, and everything would work out.

“That blue thing?” Nacho questioned, and Jade tried smiling at him.

“It’s teal,” she corrected. Any other time he probably would have tried arguing with her. Now, however, Nacho just nodded.

“He took the gun too,” she added, her voice cracking in embarrassment. Nacho closed his eyes, sighing before he nodded and stepped around her to his closet. She stood in place as he walked into the closet, coming out a second later with that same white teeshirt she always wore.

“Trade me shirts,” he told her, and Jade silently nodded, accepting the teeshirt as Nacho looked away from her. She quickly unbuttoned the one he had given her at the strip club and shrugged it off before pulling the white teeshirt over her head.

She handed the button up to Nacho, but had to say his name to get his attention, “Nacho.”

He took it from her then and started to button it up as he walked to his closed bedroom door. “Wait for me here, okay?” he met her eyes again. “Shower, watch TV, eat something, sleep, whatever. I’ll be back in a couple hours,” he told her. With a silent nod, Jade watched him take a deep breath in as he turned to his bedroom door, opening it upon his exhale.

~-----~

A knock at the door startled Jade from her half-sleep. She was on Nacho’s couch in the usual white teeshirt watching early morning infomercials since nothing else was really on. She had thrown her clothes in Nacho’s washer since he literally said: “do anything.” Jade didn’t want to put back on her beer-stained, sticky clothing after showering. Jade had also found the blanket Nacho used the last two times she had spent the night, so she was cozy and close to sleep on his couch when two-thirty rolled around.

It had been a few hours since all the guys had left Nacho’s apartment. He had tried convincing Tuco that he and Domingo could deal with this on their own. Despite Gonzo already calming Tuco down considerably, he was insistent on finding Sonny. Domingo immediately knew who Sonny was as well and was powerless to do anything but agree to take everyone to where Sonny lived. With that, everyone was off to find Sonny, but Nacho did give Jade one last reassuring look before leaving.

The knock made Jade’s eyes snap wide open before she adjusted herself on the couch, looking up and over the back of the couch at the apartment door. Nacho wouldn’t knock at his own apartment, he wouldn’t need to, but Jade had no idea who would come knocking past two in the morning.

A second set of knocks came, louder than the first but nowhere near hostile. If anything, they were kind of rushed and slightly timid. She thought of calling out instead, but Jade forced herself off of the couch and towards the apartment door. There was no peephole, so Jade had to unlock the deadbolt and knob to check who it was.

She only opened the door a crack, hiding mostly behind the door since she was wearing only Nacho’s teeshirt. Immediately, Jade felt her heart drop when she saw who was knocking. It was the brunette from the strip club that Nacho had on his lap before she had walked into the VIP lounge. She looked just as shocked that Jade had answered the door as Jade had to find her standing outside.

“Um, I, uh—”

“Oh, uh, hey…”

They both started stammering out awkward greetings before stopping again. Jade had opened the door further, and they were both taking in the other’s appearance. The brunette had a black faux fur coat on (at least Jade figured it was fake, it looked kind of cheap), and underneath was just a pair of sheer black tights and some regular heels. She wasn’t wearing the ridiculous six-inch stilettos she had on earlier at the club.

Jade realized then, how she must look wearing Nacho’s teeshirt.

“I should probably go—”

“I’m only wearing his shirt because I’m washing my— What? Why?” Jade asked, accidentally cutting the girl off.

“I…” the girl laughed, looking around the outside of the apartment. “I’m really confused.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jade tried to force herself to laugh as she rubbed at the back of her neck. “Do you, uh… You should come in, it’s kinda cold.”

“Is Nacho here?” the girl asked, playing with one of her silver hoop earrings.

“Uh, no. He’s still out with the guys. I’ll get a ride home from Nacho when he gets back,” Jade explained, hoping this girl wouldn’t suddenly turn hostile. Jade glanced at her long nails and could only imagine how bad they’d hurt if she got physically angry. That’d just be the cherry on top of her shitty night, getting into a catfight with a stripper.

“Why?” she responded to Jade’s statement with her manicured eyebrows furrowed.

“Uh… Why wouldn’t I?”

“You aren’t his girlfriend?” she asked, and Jade actually laughed.

“Oh, god no. I thought you were his girlfriend,” she suddenly felt much better about the situation.

“Oh fuck, I wish, right?” the girl also seemed to relax, laughing again.

“Do you want to come in, though?” Jade asked, ignoring the “I wish” statement while she felt the cool night air curling around her bare thighs.

“Yeah, sure,” she nodded, and Jade stepped aside, letting the girl in.

“I’m Jade, by the way,” she introduced herself as she shut the apartment door.

“Oh, that’s pretty. I’m Morena,” the girl answered before moving Jade’s blanket aside and plopping down on the couch. “Did I wake you up?” she asked, eying the blanket and pillow Jade had on the couch.

“Uh, not really. I was passing out to infomercials, but I’m really just waiting for Nacho to come back,” Jade admitted, sitting on the opposite end of the couch before pulling the blanket over her legs.

“Oh, okay,” Morena nodded before they were silent for a moment. “God,” she sighed, “I hope his real girlfriend doesn’t show up.”

“He actually has a girlfriend?” Jade asked, feeling her stomach turn sour. It was an odd feeling, and she didn’t like it. It made Jade feel nervous again.

“Yeah. He doesn’t talk about her, and I mean, why would he? He’s at a strip club, duh,” Morena laughed again. “But the other guys talk about her sometimes. I guess she’s friends with them. Like ‘La novia de Nacho dijo esto’ or ‘La novia de Nacho hizo eso,’ ya know?”

“I don’t know Spanish,” she admitted, but she had definitely heard that word before, Novia. “B—but that’s probably why I didn’t realize if they’re speaking Spanish.

“Yeah, my Spanish is kinda shit, too,” Morena shrugged. She hadn’t yet taken off her jacket, and Jade wondered if she was even wearing anything beneath it. “My dad was always on my case about it, but, I mean, he’s the one that moved here in the first place. They speak English here, duh,” Morena shook her head. Jade felt like she was supposed to be able to sympathize with her. She and her family were about as white as they came, though. Her mom knew basic Spanish from working at the bank, and her dad knew Spanish since he was the councilor for some ESL students.

When Jade didn’t respond, Morena looked over at her from the television. “So you got jacked tonight, huh?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jade nodded.

“That’s shitty. I’m sorry, girl,” Morena said, and Jade imagined she was trying to sound sincere.

“Yeah, it’s cool, I guess. Nacho’s fixing it. I probably shouldn’t have run into the strip club like I did, though, but I panicked. He took literally everything, my meth, the money, my phone, my gun,” Jade sighed.

“Some of the girls got kinda bitchy about it when all the guys left, but like, shit have some sympathy for a girl, right? That totally sucks, I’m sorry. I would have been a crying mess.”

“Yeah, I got there eventually,” Jade told her, shifting on the couch a bit so she could better face Morena.

“God, I don’t think I could ever deal. No offense,” Morena added quickly.

“None taken. I don’t think I could ever strip,” Jade nodded with a smile.

“Neither did I until I started. It’s easy money, and you got the legs for it,” Morena smiled back at her.

“The legs?” Jade laughed.

“Yeah, guys love long legs like you got. Put some heels on, and you’d get dollars left and right.”

“Oh fuck, I can’t hardly even walk in heels,” Jade laughed. “Besides, I’ve been told I wouldn’t last a night stripping before.”

“What an asshole. Who?” Morena asked her.

“Uh, Nacho,” Jade shook her head before laughing again.

“God, he’s such a dick sometimes, right? He’s all sweet on you one minute then acts like you don’t even exist the next.”

“Uh, yeah. Right,” Jade agreed though that wasn’t even a close description of Nacho and their friendship. Jade almost felt like she could get him to drop everything to help her out if she needed it. That’s practically what she just did earlier that night.

“He’s fucking loaded, though. And he’s fucking magic in bed, god,” Morena sighed, sinking a bit into her seat.

“Uh-huh,” Jade tried to agree, though she suddenly felt awkward, and that sick, nervous feeling was back.

“What?” Morena asked after a moment, turning her head as it was resting on the back of the couch. “Wait, have you—?”

“No,” Jade admitted, already knowing Morena’s question. She was asking if Jade and Nacho had slept together.

“Oh. Fuck. I’m— Oh Christ, that’s so weird, I’m sorry,” she started to apologize, and Jade shook her head, trying to pretend like she didn’t care. “I totally thought you were fucking him, the way he jumped up and pulled you out of that room. It was a total ‘I’m fucking this girl’ move.”

“Really?” Jade forced herself to ask, trying to keep her head in their conversation instead of imagining Morena and Nacho in bed together. Instead, her head just wandered to the depleting boxes of condoms she had found in his nightstand.

“Oh yeah. If you aren’t already, he totally wants to bang you,” Morena smiled, and Jade figured it was supposed to be reassuring.

“Yeah, or he’s just acting like my big brother,” Jade shrugged, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“I guess. He totally looks like he’s into you, though. Way more than he’s into me,” Morena sighed. Again the two were silent, and for a longer period, a few minutes at least.

“Hey, Morena?” Jade asked as the infomercial they were barely paying attention to ended.

“What’s up?”

“Can I ask you a huge favor?” Jade looked over to her again.

“What is it?” Morena asked, and Jade was thankful she didn’t sound bothered or upset.

“Do you have a phone I can use? Like I said, mine got jacked.” If there was one thing that could take her mind off Nacho, it was Corey and his stupid ass, and she did still have the urge to call him. That’s half the reason she was trying to stay awake, so she could call Corey when Nacho got back with her things.

“I got minutes,” Morena shrugged.

“I’ll pay you for them, once Nacho gets back. I have some cash,” Jade offered, thinking that Domingo still had her wallet and house keys. At least Sonny didn’t steal those.

Morena considered a moment before she fished her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. “Yeah, go for it,” she smiled, and Jade accepted the phone with a quiet “thank you” before flipping it open and dialing Corey’s number by memory. He probably wouldn’t even be awake, but she could at least leave him a voicemail telling him to call her.

Jade was surprised that her call was actually answered. Corey picked up with a questioning, “Hello?” He didn’t sound tired at all.

“Uh, hey,” she responded, not thinking to tell him who was calling. He recognized her voice immediately anyway.

“Jade?” he asked, before quickly adding, “Who’s phone are you calling from?”

“I’m just borrowing it, uh—”

“What happened to your phone?” he asked, cutting her off. He sounded worried.

“Uh, let’s just say I’m having a really shitty night? It got jacked.”

“What?” Corey’s voice rose slightly. “Jade, are you okay? Where are you? Do you need me to come get you?” He was letting his overbearing personality show through, and Jade shifted uncomfortably on the couch as Morena picked up the TV remote so she could start flipping channels.

“No, I’m good. I’m at, uh… Nacho’s place… He’s out taking care of it for me,” she admitted.

“Oh,” Corey responded, and Jade could hear his mood swing. “Why are you calling?” he asked her, suddenly sounding annoyed. She could only imagine how the following conversation would go.

“He told me something. Uh, Domingo cut you off?” Jade asked, picking nervously at the blanket over her legs.

She heard Corey sigh on the other end. “Are you really calling me at two-thirty to talk about this?” he asked.

“I didn’t have a phone ’til just now. It’s kind of important, don’t you think?” Jade asked him.

“What’s important?”

“That you’re using now?” Jade’s voice rose despite Morena sitting next to her. In her peripherals, she saw Morena glance over from the TV.

“Of course Nacho’d tell you I was fucking using. Great.”

“Well, you don’t talk to me anymore, and I hardly ever see Joel. How the hell else was I supposed to find out?” Jade asked him, attempting to keep her voice calm and level despite growing more and more upset with him.

“You don’t want to talk to me. You don’t want to see me. Why would I randomly tell you some shit like that? You don’t care.”

“If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have called you at two-thirty in the morning on a stranger’s cell phone,” Jade realized her jaw was clenching and took a deep breath.

“After what, six years? You suddenly care about me?”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it—”

“No, what’s bullshit is how you’ve always acted towards me,” Corey cut her off. “You act like you give a shit and that you’re my friend, or my girlfriend, until something real happens and all the sudden you fucking disappear like you don’t know me—”

“I’ve never just disappeared on you, Corey,” Jade tried denying him.

“The second shit gets real, you fucking split. Every time, with every—fucking—body. Why do you think you couldn’t keep a boyfriend for longer than a month in high school?”

“I didn’t keep them because I broke up with them, they didn’t leave me—”

“You left them because they started getting attached to you—”

“Fucking Hell, Corey, I didn’t call you to argue about this. Why are you using meth?” Jade stood up, tossing the blanket off her as she walked into Nacho’s short hallway.

“How about you don’t worry about what I’m doing?” Corey suggested angrily as Jade turned around and leaned against Nacho’s washing machine.

“Don’t worry about you using meth?” Jade responded in a similar tone.

“You don’t give a shit about Jesse doing it—”

“Did that shit-head talk you into it? Has he even told Tammy about it yet?” Jade shot back.

“He’s never gonna tell her, she doesn’t need to know—”

“They’re dating! He needs to tell her!” Jade forgot herself for a moment, nearly shouting, before walking into Nacho’s bathroom and shutting the door.

“Jesse doesn’t need to do shit,” Corey reiterated, and Jade sighed, giving up on that argument to return to the main reason for the call.

“Why are you using meth?”

“Jade—”

“Why are you using meth? Tell me,” she insisted.

“Because I feel like I’m dying? Because the girl of my dreams is a fucking sociopath with no feelings? Because I’ve been in love with her for six fucking years, and not having her makes me want to die? I’ve literally spent every second of every day since that damn truth or dare game wondering what I did wrong and why you hated me—”

“Corey,” Jade tried to stop him, but he didn’t seem to hear.

“— and why everything was so fake with you. I physically can’t breathe sometimes because it feels like I’m being stabbed in the fucking heart whenever I even hear your goddamn name.”

“Corey,” she tried again, but he still wasn’t stopping. She pulled the phone away from her ear and took a deep breath as she leaned against the bathroom door, facing the mirror. She watched a tear roll down her cheek, and she wiped furiously at her eyes, not wanting to cry again. When she brought the phone back up to her ear, she heard Corey as he kept going.

“—because it makes me forget. It makes me fucking happy. I don’t give a shit about what it’ll do to me, because I feel alive again. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Jade opened her mouth and licked her lips, trying to coax a response out of herself, but instead, she sobbed. Essentially he had just told her that it was her fault because she was a terrible person with no feelings, and she couldn’t come up with any kind of defense to prove him wrong. Nacho had even told her as much, saying she gets bored and then weirded out when guys start to really like her.

“And now your fucking crying!” Corey laughed humorlessly on the other line.

“I’m not!” she tried denying him, but her voice betrayed her.

“You’re such a piece of work, holy shit. Do you know that?” Corey asked her.

“I’m— I gotta go,” she told him instead of arguing, again rubbing at her eyes with her free hand.

“I bet you fucking do. What, did Nacho come back?”

“The phone’s on minutes,” she corrected him, unable to stop herself from sobbing into the phone.

“The-fuck-ever. I guess I’ll talk to you again in another month when you pretend to care.”

“Corey, that’s not fair,” Jade tried, but she heard the phone beep. Corey had already hung up. Jade suddenly had the urge to throw the phone, but it wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t her bathroom. Instead, she set the phone down on the counter before running her fingers through her hair, pulling at the roots.

So she was some kind of monster? That was it; that’s why Nacho wasn’t into her. He’d literally called her a man-eater, and then Corey just laid it out for her, calling her a sociopath. And even worse, as proof, Jade didn’t know if she was crying because of what Corey said or if it was the second realization that Nacho wouldn’t ever be into her. She really was fucking heartless.

And she couldn’t stop crying!

She let go of her hair before wiping her cheeks again, then slapped them a few times, like she could stop herself that way. She still had to give Morena her phone back and didn’t want to look like she had been crying again when Nacho came back.

It took a few minutes, but Jade finally composed herself. Her eyes had immediately puffed up and turned red from her hour she already spent in Nacho’s shower crying earlier. She blew her nose, figuring that was the best she could do before she grabbed Morena’s phone and left the bathroom.

“Hey, I’m sorry. That call was a bit longer—” Jade started as she walked back to the living room before the apartment door swung open. She had barely come out of the hallway as she addressed Morena, but her attention was pulled quickly to the front door. Her breath hitched, and she subconsciously pulled at the hem of Nacho’s teeshirt when she realized it wasn’t him walking in. Instead, it was Tuco. Behind Tuco was Carlos and Gonzo.

“Hey... Tuco,” Jade started, expecting more of the guys to walk in, but paused when Gonzo closed Nacho’s door behind him. He didn’t bother locking it, just how Jade had forgotten to lock it after Morena had come inside.

“Well shit,” Tuco looked over her appearance before looking to an equally stunned Morena on Nacho’s couch. He pointed at Morena before looking back to Jade. “What’s up with her?”

“Uh...” Jade had no clue what he meant or how to answer, “What?” Carlos sighed as he walked to the other end of the couch and sat down, playing with the ends of his beard. Gonzo had stayed hovering behind Tuco in the doorway.

“Where’s Nacho?” Morena spoke up since Jade seemed to be at a loss of words.

“What, you want to get this over with quicker?” She tensed as Tuco walked over to her and noticed his pupils were blown wide open. “Look, if you want us to throw her out,” he started to offer, speaking quietly but not so quiet that Morena couldn’t hear.

“What? No, she’s cool,” Jade shook her head quickly, unsure why Tuco would say such a thing. A quick glance at Morena showed that she was still confused as well. “Is Nacho okay, though?” Jade added, unable to overlook the specks of dried blood on Tuco’s face. Upon seeing them, Jade’s stomach sank.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine until he gets here,” Tuco laughed, before turning to Gonzo. “¿Dónde está su, huh? I got your stuff back for you, nena. We got all of it.”

“What happened?” she asked, noticing that Gonzo looked unsettled and that Carlos looked nervous.

She wasn’t expecting Tuco to grab hold of her face and flinched hard enough to drop Morena’s phone on the carpeted floor. “I took care of your problem,” Tuco explained, somehow missing how frightened Jade was of him. “That puta madre won’t fuck with you anymore. Nobody touches the Salamanca family. That bitch is worm food, okay nena?”

“Wh—what?” Jade asked, feeling her eyes fill with tears again. That meant Sonny was dead? Where the hell was Nacho? What the hell had happened to talking Tuco down?

“We got all your shit back too, and my money and most of the crank. That stupid bitch didn’t even try hiding it,” he laughed again before letting Jade’s face go so he could bend down and pick up Morena’s phone. He looked at it like he had never seen a cell phone before, and then placed it on the bar counter next to where they were standing. Jade looked to Gonzo again, who was separating her phone and Game Boy from the cash and baggies—

She froze, her eyes widening as she saw the OxyContin pills mixed in with the meth baggies.

“Oh, fuck,” Tuco saw them as well and grabbed a baggie from Gonzo, “We found these too.” Tuco held the baggie up for Jade to see. “Any idea what these are?” he asked. Tuco seemed genuinely curious, though Jade could barely hear him over her heartbeat pounding in her ears. This had to be it, Tuco would kill her for this. Images of Tuco strangling her flooded her head. Briefly, she thought that this was why Nacho and Domingo hadn’t shown up, but couldn’t imagine either of them abandoning her like this.

“No,” Jade shook her head before forcing herself to grab the baggie out of Tuco’s hand. “I don’t take pills, so I have no clue,” she admitted, trying not to look over at Carlos to gauge his reaction.

“Bitch had a few of them with all your shit,” Tuco stated, but Jade didn’t think it was accusatory.

“Fuckin’ junkies, right?” Jade forced herself to laugh when she handed the baggie back to Tuco. “Can’t organize their shit. It’s yours now, I guess?”

“They’re mine now,” Tuco laughed in agreement, looking at the pill in the small bag. Jade was in disbelief that she had convinced Tuco that easily. “Morena, you pop pills?” he turned and asked as Gonzo handed Jade her phone and Game Boy.

“No,” she answered him shortly, her arms crossed tightly over her coat.

“So, whatchu think? Upper or downer?” Tuco looked back to Jade.

“Fuck if I know,” Jade forced a shrug and a smile. She tried channeling her happy-go-lucky self from the drops at El Michoacáno before he had cut her hand. “It’s probably his Viagra.”

“‘It’s probably his Viagra,’” Tuco repeated, erupting in laughter as the apartment door opened again. Jade’s eyes left Tuco, and she felt immediate relief when she saw Nacho and Domingo. “Tu novia, ese,” Tuco looked to Nacho as well, pointing at Jade with the hand holding the OxyContin baggie, “She’s a real joker. Jade, nena,” he turned back to her, holding the baggie up again so she could clearly see the pill. “Viagra is blue.”

Jade, keeping her attitude up, rose an eyebrow at him. “How do you know what Viagra looks like?” On the couch, she heard Morena quickly stifle laughter, and Gonzo rose both his eyebrows at Tuco. 

“She’s got you there,” Gonzo told Tuco, and he laughed again.

“I guess she does,” he opened the baggie and dropped it on Nacho’s floor before dry swallowing the pill, without any idea what it was. “Look, Jade. If you’re pissed off at your man, you can crash at mine for the night,” he added, with a toothy smile once he had swallowed the pill. 

“What?” was all she could muster, looking back to Nacho, who was pinching the bridge of his nose. Behind him, Domingo had his back to the wall next to the door. He looked pale, almost like he might be sick.

“What?” Morena asked as well, probably because Tuco’s poor word choice made it sound like Jade was Nacho’s girlfriend. Jade’s eyes fell on Morena, then back to Nacho.

“Tuco, hey,” Nacho avoided looking at Jade and spoke to Tuco instead, “It’s, uh, it’s late—”

“No, no, I gotchu,” Tuco laughed before stepping forward and clapping him on the shoulder. “You got this mess to sort out now. Hey, nena, offer’s still open?” Tuco held his arms open, invitingly.

“I, uh... No, I’m okay,” Jade tried.

“She knows, she’s cool with it,” Nacho answered for her.

Tuco’s face immediately fell in something resembling awe. “No shit? Where the fuck do I find myself a girlfriend that chill?” he laughed before looking to Morena, who was still sitting uncomfortably on the couch. “She’s cool with you? It’s the fucking teenagers, isn’t it? They’re down with everything. Fuck,” Tuco kept laughing as he made for the apartment door, Gonzo following him out.

Jade wasn’t sure how she felt at the moment, Tuco thought she and Nacho were dating? Why didn’t Nacho try correcting him? Was Sonny dead? Corey was using meth? She was a heartless bitch? Nacho had been fucking Morena for God knows how long now, and Tuco had found Nacho’s OxyContin pills.

Jade’s mind wouldn’t stop racing, jumping from one realization to the next, and it made her legs feel weak, and her heart couldn’t catch any kind of rhythm.

“Goddamn,” Carlos caught her attention, and Jade suddenly realized that Tuco and Gonzo were gone. “That’s why you had her at all those drops?” he turned on the couch to look at Nacho.

“He was holding one,” Domingo stated near lifeless, leaning back against Nacho’s wall. “He took one of them.”

“What was it?” Morena asked.

“It’s nothing,” Nacho answered, almost snapping at her. “Carlos, can you take her home?” he turned to him, and Jade tried to get her feet to move so he could get her clothes out of Nacho’s dryer. That was logical, at least. She didn’t want Carlos to driver her home wearing only Nacho’s shirt.

“Yeah, c’mon,” Carlos stood up. Instead of motioning for Jade to follow him, he motioned at Morena. Wordlessly, she stood from the couch as well.

“Domingo, you okay to drive?” Nacho asked. Though he still looked sick, he nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Uh, phone,” Jade managed to get out, looking to the counter where Morena’s phone was. Somehow Nacho seemed to understand and grabbed it before walking everyone out, leaving Jade standing there utterly confused and heartbroken by herself for a moment.

When Nacho came back inside, he was still avoiding eye contact. After shutting and locking his door, he sighed before turning around and surveying his living room. “Look, I can explain—” he started. Unfortunately, at the same time, Jade seemed to find her voice as well.

“Are you okay?” she accidentally spoke over him, and finally, Nacho’s eyes were back on her.

“What?” he asked, not so much like he hadn’t heard her but more like he was utterly perplexed that she would ask him that.

“Um...” Jade crossed her arms tightly over her chest, unable to reiterate or explain her simple question.

Nacho didn’t answer her; instead, he asked, “Are you okay staying here, or do you want to go home?”

“Can I stay here?” she asked him, unsure if that was an invitation to stay or a more delicate way of telling her to leave.

“Of course,” he nodded, sounding sincere. Jade tried to relax a bit but couldn’t get her muscles to unwind, not after her brief encounter with Tuco blatantly offering to spend the night with him.

“I’m... gonna shower and change,” he told her after another tense, silent moment. Jade nodded, and slowly, Nacho made his way past her and to his bathroom, leaving her alone in the living room. 

Jade stayed where she was for a little while, only moving from her spot when she heard the shower turn on in Nacho’s bathroom. She looked at her phone and her Game boy on the counter and briefly wondered what happened to her gun. If it was lost good riddance, she figured before she stepped over to the bar, visually examining both of the electronics. Her phone was fine, and her Game Boy looked unscathed except for a drop of blood on the side. She stared at the dark red spot that contrasted harshly with the bright turquoise plastic before picking her phone up from the counter and flipping it open. Immediately, she was notified of nearly two dozen texts and half as many missed calls. All but two of the text messages were from Domingo. When Jade checked them, they ranged from the typical “this tweaker is coming for drugs” to full-blown panic “holy shit what happened where are you” texts.

The last two, she was afraid to look at since they were sent by Corey. Jade stared at the notification long enough for her phone to shut off after being idle too long, and only then did she open them.

From: Corey  
Text: 1/2  
look im sorry call me when you get this  
Text: 2/2  
please

She must have stood there longer than she thought, staring at those texts. Before she knew it, Jade heard the bathroom door open again. Jade kept her eyes on her phone even though she saw Nacho walk out of the bathroom in her peripheral sight. He stayed in the hallway for a moment before stepping into his bedroom, and Jade thought she could hear him sigh. After he had disappeared from view, Jade pulled aside one of the barstools and slid herself onto the seat.

Would it be wrong of her to blow Corey off after everything that had happened that night? She quietly flipped her phone closed, figuring he didn’t have to know she already had her phone back. On the front of her phone, the screen read two fifty-eight, and she watched it change to two fifty-nine when she heard Nacho’s soft footsteps over his apartment’s carpet. Jade set her phone down and forced her eyes onto him, seeing that he had walked up to her and stopped, the second barstool between where he stood in his sweatpants and Jade in her seat.

She had a thousand questions for him; Was he actually okay? What happened to talking Tuco down? Was Sonny really dead? Why did Tuco think they were dating? Jade wasn’t sure what to ask first, which was more important, and Nacho didn’t look like he was going to say anything to her until she spoke first.

“I owe Morena money,” was the first sentence that she could articulate, and immediately the soft, worried look on Nacho’s face fell into confusion.

“What?” he asked back.

“I… I told her I’d pay her for her minutes on her phone,” Jade poorly explained.

Nacho observed her face for a couple of seconds before saying, “Okay. I’ll take care of her.”

He meant for it to help calm Jade down as if he was saying not to worry about it. Instead, that nervous, shaking, sour feeling returned, and Jade’s mind immediately jumped to another definition of “taking care” of Morena. She couldn’t keep her eyes on his face and looked back to where she had set her phone on the counter. “She thought I was your girlfriend,” Jade stated, trying to sound nonchalant, but she had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could speak, which made her voice weak.

“You let her in?” Nacho poorly avoided the “girlfriend” subject.

“You saw what she was wearing, it’s fucking cold right now,” Jade pulled her hands into her lap, tightly gripping the hem of Nacho’s teeshirt she had on. It wasn’t that cold out, it was three in the morning in mid-September. Morena had that jacket as well, Jade knew that she would have been fine if she had just slammed the door in her face.

Nacho didn’t respond to her statement; instead, he pulled the second barstool out and took a seat next to Jade. Before he could fully sit and settle himself, Jade blurted out, “How long have you been calling me your novia?” She knew the word, and she’d been hearing it for quite some time but couldn’t pinpoint any kind of date in her head.

Nacho’s immediate response was to lean forward, resting his elbows on the countertop as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I told Tuco to calm him down that day at the restaurant,” he admitted, before pulling his hands away from his face and looking to Jade. Her eyes couldn’t stay on his, and she kept looking between her phone, and Game Boy, and her hands in her lap. “I panicked, and it was the first thing I could think to say to get him to chill.”

He was talking about when Tuco had sliced her fingers open and thought she was “punking” him somehow. That was the day after Jesse’s party, over two months ago. Jade took a deep breath before saying, “You kept saying it.”

“Because Tuco wouldn’t drop it,” he told Jade with a defensive tone.

Jade locked her eyes on her phone before asking, “So who thinks we’re dating?”

Nacho sighed again. “Everyone,” he answered, and she met his eyes again before repeating him.

“Everyone?” He nodded. “Carlos and Domingo?” Another nod. “What about Emilio’s party?” Again, he nodded. Jade could only take that to mean that every single person at that party, Emilio and his girlfriend included, thought she was Nacho’s girlfriend. “Am I the only person who had no idea?” This time Nacho was still before taking a careful breath in and looking across the counter into his dark kitchen. Jade waited this time. Finally, she was able to keep her eyes on him. She was staring, so her question wouldn’t be forgotten.

“It’s not exactly an easy subject to bring up,” was all he answered with, and he kept avoiding her eyes.

“Tell them we broke up,” Jade demanded quickly, realizing she sounded angry. Was she angry, though? She couldn’t quite keep a firm grasp on any emotion at the moment. Didn’t she want that? Didn’t she want to be Nacho’s girlfriend? But she wasn’t, it was fake. He didn’t like her like that. If he did, they’d already be dating for real.

Nacho finally turned back to her, meeting her eyes before giving a firm, “No.”

“No?” To Jade, it was the only option because Nacho didn’t date. He wasn’t into her, hell that shotgun kiss from Emilio’s party was probably just a show.

“No, I can’t tell them that.”

“You can’t tell them? But you can lie and say we’re a couple?”

“Did Tuco not just proposition you before he left?” Nacho pointed out, but for Jade, being in a fake relationship with absolutely no say in it wasn’t going to fly.

“What if I already have a boyfriend?” she shot back.

“You have a boyfriend?” Nacho asked, his voice taking on an edge of its own.

“What if I did?” she avoided answering, though she knew that Nacho knew she didn’t have one. Hell, if she picked up her phone and called Corey back and asked him out, there was a good chance he’d accept.

“Then cool,” Nacho sighed, sounding suddenly complacent. Jade couldn’t tell if it was fake or not, she wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be fake.

“Is it cool that you’re ‘dating’ me and fucking Morena?” Jade countered, suddenly realizing that she sounded jealous now. Shit, was she jealous? When the hell was she ever jealous?

She watched him recoil slightly, leaning an inch or two away from her. “Do you want it to stop?”

“I—I don’t— I can’t tell you—” Jade didn’t realize she was shaking until she quickly got off of the stool and tripped, knocking it backward as she stood up. “I can’t tell you to do that, we aren’t dating,” she tried reinforcing through a shaky voice, focusing instead on trying to pick the stool up. It wasn’t even heavy, but Jade still ended up on the ground with it. She felt like her body had given up, she was already mentally exhausted from everything.

Jade let go of the stool, sitting with her back against the side of Nacho’s couch, and pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes, her elbows propped on her knees. Fake dating Nacho wasn’t even the most important thing at the moment. Corey was using meth because of her. Fuck, somebody had died because of her. Corey was right, she was a sociopath. Unable to hold back, Jade sobbed.

“Hey,” she heard Nacho and ignored him. She wouldn’t get much more than a babbling mess out of her mouth anyway. With another moment, she heard him get off of his own stool. “Jade?” he asked, his voice was closer now.

“I’m sorry,” she tried, thinking maybe he’d leave her alone.

“Jade,” he repeated, and she took in a deep breath. Maybe she could compose herself long enough for him to go to bed so she could cry on his couch, or in his bathroom, or perhaps on his balcony.

“Today’s just shitty,” Jade tried wiping the tears off her face, but they kept coming despite finding the last bit of composure she had in her. The tears and the pressure from her hands left her vision blurry, but she still saw Nacho standing in front of her. He was holding out a hand to help her up.

“I know,” he pressed, keeping his hand in front of her. Jade didn’t really want to stand up, she didn’t even want to move, but she still obliged, wiping the tears off her hands on the teeshirt she had on, before placing her hand in his. Jade expected to be pulled to her feet, but instead, Nacho bent down, guiding her hand to his shoulder. In another second, that same hand was on her back, and his other arm was under her knees. She wrapped her other arm around him without question and buried her head in the crook of his neck as he picked her up off the ground to hold in his arms.

He didn’t carry her far; instead, he stepped around the couch so he could sit down with Jade in his lap. She kept her position, with her arms wrapped around his neck, waiting for Nacho to say something first. He didn’t say anything, though. Instead, his hand left her back briefly to reach for the remote on the cushion next to them. A moment later, the television turned off.

With a sniff, Jade broke the silence first, speaking into Nacho’s skin. “Tuco’s gonna kill us if he finds out.”

It took Nacho a few seconds to respond to her, and when he did, all he said was, “I’ll take care of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No mames.” — No fucking way. (literally translates to don’t kid, or something of the like, but in a vulgar way. Lalo also says it in Season five while he’s watching Nacho from his car, you know the scene.)
> 
> “Mira a quién encontre. ¿Estás en problemas, ese?” — Look who I found. Are you in trouble, ese?
> 
> “Ella, uh, nos íbamos.” — She, uh, we were leaving.
> 
> “Ella aparece de la nada, y de repente, ¿tienes que irte?” — She shows up out of nowhere, and all a sudden, you have to leave?
> 
> “¿Qué chingado? ¿Ella está bien?” — What the hell? Is she okay?
> 
> “Estamos en una mierda, mantén la calma.” — We’re in some shit, keep your cool.
> 
> “Ella entró al club llorando. Tuco viene aquí, no sabe sobre las píldoras. Esperemos que no lo descubra por el tuyo y el de ella.” — She came into the club crying. Tuco is coming here, he don’t know about the pills. Hopefully he won’t find out for yours and her sake.
> 
> “¡Pasale!” — Come in!
> 
> “¿Qué pasa? ¿Ella está bien ahora?” — What’s up? Is she okay now?
> 
> “Ella esta mejor, ¿donde esta Tuco?” — She’s fine, where is Tuco?
> 
> “Viene por de atras de nosotros.” — He’s right behind us.
> 
> “Déjame hablar con ella. ¿Danos un segundo, okay?” — Let me talk to her. Give us a second, okay?
> 
> “La novia de Nacho dijo esto.” — Nacho’s girlfriend said this.
> 
> “La novia de Nacho hizo eso.” — Nacho’s girlfriend did that.
> 
> “¿Dónde está su, huh?” — Where’s her shit, huh?
> 
> Why do I feel like this had a disappointing "Rise of Skywalker" or "Game of Thrones" unsatisfying ending 😫? I think I tried unpacking too much at once. But hey, Jade is pretty much caught up with the here and now and everything Nacho was saying so... that's fun. Another exciting thing is we're finally crossing over into Season 2 territory and it only took me ten months to do. I also don't think I have to write Tuco again from Jade's point of view so I'm ecstatic about that 😄 Getting his character right is such a struggle, I swear.
> 
> In other good news, the next two chapters are collectively missing maybe a few hundred words at most, so I can keep with the regular bi-monthly updates. I do really need to catch up with Nacho's point of view over in Hard to be a God though so I'll probably work on that after finishing the next two chapters.
> 
> As always, thanks to the boyfriend for beta reading a good 90% of this (he still has to read the end) and for the Spanish translations. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read this monster, as well. Even just seeing the hit count rise makes my day ❤


	19. Pin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nacho severs ties with a business associate. After learning how much cash Jade has saved up, he comes up with a plot to employ her legitimately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Grimes' song "Pin".
> 
> This chapter is about 22 novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 40 minutes to read.
> 
> The spoiler warning changes this chapter! This update has some pretty heavy scene spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1, "Switch". There are no other warnings needed for this chapter.
> 
> All Spanish in this chapter is translated in the notes at the end. Take a look after reading, even if you usually don't 😉

Jade had passed out shortly after, mentally exhausted from everything that had happened that night. Without a doubt, it was the worst night Jade ever had. It easily topped the night spent in the hospital with her family when Charlie had broken his foot, and the night she spent throwing up from food poisoning back in ninth grade.

When she had woken up, Jade realized she was in Nacho’s bed. Typical, she figured, looking around the room with sore eyes. The other side of the bed was untouched except for the single missing pillow she had taken to the living room. The bedroom door was cracked open, and Jade could faintly hear the television. Jade quickly realized she didn’t have her phone in the bedroom with her, so instead, she reached over for Nacho’s clock and saw that it was past noon already.

Jade dropped her head back onto her pillow, trying to decide if she should get up or if she didn’t care and wanted to sleep another nine or so hours. If she was at home, in her own bed, she might have chosen to sleep. But because she was at Nacho’s and wasn’t sure of his plans for the day, Jade decided to drag herself out of his bed.

Rubbing at her eyes, she made her way to the bedroom door and swung it open. She could see the television on but didn’t see Nacho sitting on the couch when she stepped into the hallway. Figuring he was probably still laying down himself, Jade moved into his bathroom to wash her face, brush her teeth, and comb her hair out.

When she came out a few minutes later, Nacho was now sitting up on the couch. “Hey,” he greeted her, his head turned to watch as she walked into the living room.

“Hey,” she replied, spotting her cell phone on the bar counter where she had left it.

“Uh, Corey called a few times,” Nacho told her before Jade picked up her cell phone. All her contacts had the same ring tone, so he would have had to grab her phone and check.

The front screen read that she had three missed calls. “Should I tell him to stop calling me?” Jade set her phone back down on the counter and turned back to Nacho, only to see his eyebrow raised. “I mean since we’re dating and everything,” she added, before walking around the bar counter and into Nacho’s kitchen. The mug she was using last night for water was still sitting on the counter. She grabbed it and dumped the water into the sink before filling it again with water from the fridge dispenser.

“Do what you want,” she heard Nacho and turned around after her mug was half full. She wondered how he seemed so relaxed after everything that had happened last night. Immediately after, Jade wondered if she might be able to pull off his same nonchalant attitude.

“Figured I’d give my fake boyfriend a say,” Jade shrugged at him before taking a drink from her mug and walking out of the kitchen.

Nacho was quiet, his relaxed composure showing a small crack as she walked into the living room. He didn’t say anything until she had sat down next to him on the couch. 

“Appreciate it,” he told her, glancing at his mug and then back to her face.

“Not gonna give you a say in me dealing though,” she added, wondering if it was too soon to bring this up or not. Jade kept her eyes on the television. After last night she didn’t think she could keep selling for Domingo and Nacho.

“If you’re gonna try to convince me to keep you on the streets, it’s not gonna work.” Jade looked to Nacho then, finding herself surprised that they actually agreed on something.

“Really?” she asked, lowering the mug in her hands to her lap.

Nacho shook his head, pressing the fingers of his left hand into his eyes briefly. His right arm was up on the back of the couch behind Jade.

“Thinking you’d defend yourself was a horrible mistake,” Nacho admitted. For a half-second, Jade was offended, before she felt relieved.

“So no more bench?” Jade asked him.

The question earned a head shake from Nacho before his arm moved off the back of the couch and around her shoulders. “No more.”

There was a surprisingly comfortable silence that followed, and Jade took a drink from her water, blue eyes fixed on Nacho’s TV. “So you aren’t gonna call Corey back?” Nacho asked, and Jade only shrugged against his arm. She noticed his eyes on her face then, and she met his gaze, realizing he wanted more of an answer than a half-hearted shrug.

“He called me heartless and a sociopath last night. I kinda don’t want to deal with that again.”

“He—” Nacho stopped to try and catch his laughter. Jade furrowed her eyebrows, wondering why that was funny to him. “He called you a sociopath?” he completed his question this time.

“Nacho, please—” Jade started, looking away and shaking her head, not wanting to get into this with him as well.

“You are the most social person I’ve ever met,” Nacho cut her off, “You love people, you’re friends with everyone. And didn’t you— hey,” he reached for her face, gently turning her head back to him with a couple fingers under her chin. “Did you not immediately ask me if I was okay last night after everything you had been through?” he asked, raising his scarred eyebrow at her. Jade could practically see her own reflection in his dark eyes, and it made her stomach do a backflip. “He didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah,” Jade had to take a second to find her voice properly as his hand fell away from her chin, “You didn’t hear our conversation last night.”

“Let me guess,” Nacho leaned back, looking up to his ceiling, but Jade felt like he wasn’t actually thinking that hard. “You confronted him about the meth, he blamed you and said you were a sociopath because you broke his heart?” he looked back to Jade then.

“Um, kinda… yeah, actually,” Jade nodded, “Good guess,” she added before taking another drink from the ugly coffee mug.

“He’s kind of a whiny bitch, so— You okay?” he asked as the water she had in her mouth made her instantly choke. She reached forward, setting what was left of her water on the coffee table as she coughed to clear her throat.

“Whiny bitch?” she asked, wiping her chin as she looked back to Nacho.

“Am I wrong?” he asked before laughing.

“I mean, there are nicer ways to describe him,” Jade told him before laughing again, this time without the hindrance of water in her mouth. “So, I’m taking that as you saying, don’t call him?”

Nacho shook his head, “Do what you want. Just don’t know why you’d want to call him if that’s all he’s going to say.”

“I guess you’re right,” Jade agreed before sitting forward on the couch again and leaning her head on Nacho’s shoulder. Things were still far from alright, but they were getting there, at least.

~-----~

Apparently, no longer dealing for Nacho and Domingo didn’t exclude Jade completely from working for the cartel. The Salamancas were still painfully short on people who could properly cut their methamphetamine coming across the border, so she spent a few days a week doing that with Arturo and the odd helper, such as No-Doze or Nacho himself.

One afternoon, after Nacho had picked Jade up, she immediately realized he was heading in the wrong direction to drop her off at the ice cream shop.

“What are we doing?” she asked him, looking over at Nacho from his seat.

“I need you for a meet instead,” Nacho explained without so much as a glance away from the road.

“Oh,” Jade nodded, though Nacho wasn’t looking at her. She immediately understood that they were meeting Pryce and Mike. Jade silently wondered if Nacho had found someone else to sell the pills for him.

Jade preoccupied herself with her cell phone, knowing it was a good drive down I-40 to the power plant. She didn’t look up most of the ride, even when she felt Nacho pull off the interstate and onto the dirt road leading to the abandoned power plant.

“What the hell is this?” Nacho suddenly asked, and Jade looked up, towards the dirt lot they were driving up to.

“Whoa,” Jade said, and blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. Instead of the usual minivan that she remembered Pryce driving, there was an absurdly bright yellow hummer parked in the lot, complete with red flames and, of all things, chrome spinner rims. “We’re… we’re meeting the same guys, right?” Jade asked, looking back to Nacho as he stopped his van in the lot. She watched his jaw flex in contemplation, and, for a brief moment, she thought Nacho would throw his van in reverse and drive away.

“It’s just that idiot,” he told her, looking to his right where she was sat next to him. “Grab the cash and back me up.”

“What? ‘Back you up’?” Jade asked him. “You told me before that you don’t need backup.”

“Be nice to him. Distract him,” he clarified, but Jade still felt uneasy.

“Distract him?” Jade asked, “Nacho, don’t do something—”

“It’s fine. Just distract him, okay?” he told Jade as he got out of his van.

“What do you mean—” Jade tried again when Nacho opened her door for her but was quietly hushed. “Fine,” she huffed, as Nacho closed the passenger door behind her, and then led her closer to Pryce his neon eyesore.

“Hola,” Pryce waved at them with a dorky smile. Jade noticed a yellow and red watch on his wrist, matching his shoes, both of which matched his Hummer. She had to remind herself to smile back at him instead of letting herself wonder what caused Pryce’s sudden affinity for yellow and red.

“No old guy?” Nacho asked as he walked up to him, and Jade followed his lead. She stopped with Nacho on her left, watching him look around the abandoned power plant. “What, did he break a hip or something?” he added, and to Jade’s surprise, his scowl turned into a friendly smile.

“I know, right?” Pryce laughed, and she knew immediately something was up, Nacho was planning something. Despite this, she smiled as well. “Yeah— no, we uh, we parted ways. Yeah, saw things differently so… you know how it is,” Pryce explained, and Jade looked to the Hummer again, wondering if it had scared the old man off. Upon first seeing it, she thought it was going to scare Nacho off as well.

Always one for saying as little as possible, Nacho only nodded before nudging Jade, letting her know to hand over the envelope filled with cash. She stepped forward, keeping her smile as she said, “Yeah, totally,” even though she didn’t know “how it is.”

Pryce nodded, grabbing the envelope before turning and walking towards the back of the Hummer to count his money.

“This is interesting,” Nacho, to Jade’s surprise, spoke up. She looked to her left again and watched him follow Pryce.

“What are you doing?” she whispered at Nacho’s back but was ignored. They never got closer than necessary to Pryce or Mike during these deals, she had learned, but that may have been because of Mike himself.

“Oh, yeah. You like it?” Pryce turned around with another proud smile on his face.

“Can I take a look?” Nacho asked with a point, and Jade rose her eyebrow before remembering what Nacho had told her in his van.

Looking eager to show off his atrocious prized possession, Pryce nodded. “Oh, be my guest. Get in, check it out.”

Nacho stepped forward again, and Jade quickly followed, positioning herself between Nacho and Pryce. She had no idea what Nacho had up his sleeve and doubted he’d outright mug the guy with her around. She also wanted to let him know she didn’t agree with whatever his plan was without showing Pryce her face.

“Wow,” he took in the Hummer’s paint job before looking to Jade’s frown, and then to Pryce’s proud smile behind her. He stepped closer to the passenger door to look inside before adding, “Impressive.”

“Thank you,” Pryce moved to stand next to Jade, utterly oblivious to Nacho’s ploy, whatever it was. “Do you want to get in? Feel the leather?” he turned to Jade.

“Uh,” she tried, but her tongue stalled. Nacho prompted her further by pulling on the handle to the passenger door, opening it for her. “You just bought it?” She tried switching the subject, and instead, Nacho climbed in himself.

“Oh, yeah. It’s an H2. Brand new, off the line. Slimmer than the H1, but longer, more height,” Pryce explained like he might have been talking about a purebred racehorse.

“Sure beats an old Chevy Van, huh?” Jade smiled at Pryce, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked back to him from where Nacho had taken a seat.

“Yeah, it’s a honey. V8 engine, three hundred twenty-five horsepower,” Pryce took her bait to start bragging. It could be considered distracting him, Jade figured. “Trizone climate controls, so you can have a girl in a bikini, and another in a parka, and they’re both gonna be comfortable,” Pryce laughed.

Jade looked down at her jeans and teeshirt. “Well damn,” she looked back to Pryce with a smile.

“You’re riding around with two girls in your SUV?” Nacho questioned from the passenger seat, “You’d be really comfortable, huh?”

“Oh yes,” Nacho’s jab seemed to fly right over Pryce’s head. “I’m gonna count this quick,” Pryce motioned to the envelope he was still holding before walking towards the tailgate of the Hummer again.

“Do your thing, make sure it’s right,” Nacho called after him, meeting Jade’s questioning gaze once more. “Keep an eye on him,” he lowered his voice to a mere whisper before facing forward in the passenger seat. Nacho didn’t give Jade any chance to voice her uneasy feeling or her question of what the hell he was doing, so she did as she was told. Jade turned towards the tailgate, where Pryce was counting the money just out of her view.

From inside the Hummer, Jade heard a soft click and looked back to see that Nacho had opened the glove box. She inhaled, deciding that maybe she didn’t want to know what Nacho was doing, and turned a blind eye. Another moment or two passed before she saw Pryce moving back around the Hummer, now holding a cardboard box. Blindly, she reached into the Hummer to tap on Nacho’s shoulder, before she heard another soft click. Just in case, she cleared her throat to mask the sound.

“All good?” she asked him, smiling at Pryce once again.

“We are good,” he nodded before handing Jade the box. “Uh, same as before. Still factory sealed, and as always, you’re welcome to count them.” Nacho was standing next to Jade now, and she looked up to his face before giving an answer. He hadn’t wanted to count the pills before, but he also hadn’t ever wanted to get into Pryce’s car.

“I trust you,” Nacho stated for Jade, and she tried to keep her neutral expression.

“Great, thank you,” Pryce seemed genuinely happy with that statement. Immediately after, Jade felt Nacho tug at the sleeve of her teeshirt before quickly walking away.

“Later, Pryce,” Jade started to follow, walking backward around the Hummer’s open passenger door as she waved at him.

“See you next time,” he nodded before Jade turned around and sped up, wanting to get to Nacho’s van before Pryce realized Nacho had done something or had stolen something from the glove box. Jade hurriedly got into the passenger seat where Nacho was standing. He held the door open for her before he walked around the front of his van and started it up before his door was fully closed.

“What the fuck was that?” Jade asked, barely able to get her seatbelt on before Nacho was driving away from the power plant’s lot.

“I feel like he gets that question a lot,” Nacho answered, mistaking Jade’s question. “What idiot wants to drive a school bus yellow hummer?”

“No, what the hell were you doing?” Jade ignored him so she could clarify what she meant.

“What?” Nacho asked, looking over at Jade, who was turned towards him in her seat now. “What?” he asked again, noting her reproachful expression.

“What did you take?” she asked, and in response, Nacho sighed heavily. He used the excuse of checking the I-40 for oncoming cars to look away from Jade.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Jade went as far as crossing her arms while Nacho pulled into the interstate.

“I didn’t take anything—”

“You opened the glove box,” she pointed out.

“But I didn’t take anything,” Nacho defended himself. Jade narrowed her eyes at him though he was refusing to look over at her now, before she sighed herself, giving in.

“Fine, whatever. You didn’t take anything,” Jade leaned back in her seat before opening the box and looking at the twelve OxyContin bottles within. “Don’t fuck with him, he’s nice and makes you twenty grand a month.”

“He’s nice?” Nacho rose one of his eyebrows at the road before them. “He’s an idiot.”

“He’s nice! And he’s probably smarter than both of us combined, are you kidding? I want that guy to do my homework, and I’m not even in school,” Jade laughed despite defending Pryce.

“You know what that Hummer is?” Nacho finally glanced at her. “It’s a huge red flag. Where’d he get the cash for that thing?” Nacho asked her rhetorically.

“Technically, it’s more yellow than red,” Jade joked, but Nacho didn’t look amused. “Maybe he’s been saving up?” Jade shrugged, “Maybe it was his dream to finally get a lease on a gaudy Hummer?”

“Then why haven’t you bought one?” Nacho prompted.

“Uh, maybe because I only have twenty grand under my bed instead of like forty? How much are new Hummers?”

“You have twenty grand under your bed?” Nacho asked, his head fully turning to look at her for a second.

“Like eighteen— Nacho, what the fuck?” she sat up, noticing the look he was giving her.

“You seriously have eighteen grand just sitting under your mattress?” he questioned.

“Where the hell else am I supposed to put it?”

“And you’re not worried about your parents or siblings finding it? Jesus Christ— There’s not even bars on your house’s windows. It takes three seconds to break in,” he continued despite her long and over-exaggerated sigh.

“Chill out, no one knows about it. It’s not like I can just take it to the bank, my mom would flip the second she saw the deposit.”

“Nobody knows about it? Absolutely no one? Corey? Joel? What’s your friend’s name, Tammy?”

“What are they gonna do about it?” Jade asked, before actually laughing at Nacho.

“You trust them that much? Corey even?”

“Hey, perks of having real friends, you can trust them,” Jade laughed, watching Nacho’s frown sink further into his features. “If you’re worried about all my cash, maybe you should stop paying me to fake date you,” she added, keeping her smile leftover from laughing.

“I’m not paying you to fake date me,” Nacho’s jaw tightened.

“Whatever. Practically every time we’ve seen each other, you’ve given me a huge wad of cash.”

“For dealing—”

“Uh-huh.”

“And cutting—”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Jade,” he stressed, looking over at her briefly, “really?”

“Jeez, babe, you’re adorable when you’re upset,” Jade tried sounding serious but couldn’t stop herself from laughing again.

“Not as adorable as you are while you’re being an insufferable brat.” With a sigh, Nacho seemed to give up on how apparently dangerous it was that she just had a pile of cash under her bed.

“Ask Domingo, and he’d say ‘brat’ is my middle name,” Jade sighed, looking back down at the box of pills before folding the top to close it up again.

“I wonder why?” Nacho falsely mused. “I don’t think I’m gonna miss these long drives with you.”

“We’ve only done this like four times— Wait, what?” Jade questioned, looking over to see that Nacho was smirking now.

“I told you, that Hummer’s a red flag. We aren’t doing this again.”

“Who’s gonna get the pills?”

He glanced at her again, looking serious. “Nobody. That’s it,” he looked down at the box in her lap before returning his focus to the road.

“You’re just gonna take a twenty grand a month hit?” Jade leaned forward to try and get a better read on Nacho’s expression. “What does that mean, ‘that’s it’? No more Oxy?”

“Yeah,” he nodded once, “no more Oxy.”

“Pull over,” she told him urgently and pushed the box off of her lap. It fell onto the floor of the van with a clatter.

“Why?” Nacho looked over again, watching her unbuckle her seatbelt.

“Just pull over,” she told him, even though he already was. Before the van had fully stopped, she got out.

“Jade?” he questioned through the passenger door she left open. She was already stepping off the sun-bleached asphalt into the desert. “Hey,” she heard him, the word punctuated by the sound of his door closing. She turned around, her hands on top of her head, in time to see Nacho walk around the front of his van.

“Are you serious?” Jade asked him. Her hands dropped from her head so she could cross her arms.

“I’m serious about the twelve hundred Oxy pills in my van if a sheriff pulls up to us,” Nacho pointed back at his van. He stopped walking and stood about ten feet away from her.

“It took a fucking school bus yellow Hummer to make you realize this whole thing was a horrible idea?” Jade snapped at him, and Nacho dropped his pointing hand.

“No. Seeing you and Tuco holding baggies of my Oxy made me realize,” he admitted, his chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. That had happened last weekend, though, so why were they doing this today? That was the next question out of her mouth.

“What the hell are we doing buying more of it then?”

“This was already set up,” he shrugged like that was apparent.

“So you’ve got a fucking contract somewhere saying you had to buy more pills from that nerd?” Jade dropped her arms from her chest but made sure she still sounded upset despite feeling relieved.

“Weren’t you just defending him a second ago?” Nacho rose his scarred eyebrow at her. The slight smirk growing on his lips told Jade that he could see her relief despite her tone of voice.

“Nacho,” Jade stressed.

“Jade,” he mocked, and she let herself crack. Jade started towards him, and Nacho took a step backward before she collided with him, her arms wrapping around his chest under his black zip-up hoodie. Unlike at the strip club, it took Nacho a second to reciprocate, but only a second. After, he pulled Jade into him, holding her against his chest.

“Thank you,” Jade sighed into the crook of Nacho’s neck. She was standing on her toes so she could see over his shoulder and realized the desert was growing blurry. Determined not to cry, she sucked in a deep breath and held it in her lungs before squeezing her eyes shut.

“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he responded quietly into her hair. 

“I’m thanking you for realizing you’re an idiot,” Jade responded once she was sure she wouldn’t cry. She felt Nacho laugh through her own chest before she stepped away and crossed her arms, remembering her boundaries and how awkward she had made the night after Emilio’s party.

“Fair,” Nacho nodded, immediately closing himself off as well. “But can we seriously get moving before a sheriff shows up?”

“What, and miss out on the cool field trip to jail?” Jade forced a smirk with her sarcasm, “Yeah, fine.”

~-----~

Cutting meth was even worse than selling it, Jade thought. Sure, it was a hundred times less dangerous, but it was a thousand times more boring. The only people she knew were Arturo and No-Doze, and neither of them seemed capable of working and holding a conversation. Anyone else who dropped by to help cut didn’t seem to know or pretended not to understand English. Her time was literally spent only cutting, weighing, and bagging meth. At least she wasn’t afraid to wear her headphones while cutting like she was while dealing. It still didn’t help that she could never remember to bring extra batteries, though.

She was only a couple hours in that day, with Arturo and No-Doze sitting across the table when there was a knock on the door. It was barely audible over Arturo’s choice of music. Jade was closer to the door but stayed in her seat. Instead, she looked up at Arturo before turning towards the door. He had stood up and made his way over, checking the peephole before unlocking the door and opening it for the visitor.

When Jade saw Nacho walk in, a milkshake held in his hand, she immediately smiled, knowing it was for her. She took a second to compose her face before pulling her face mask down under her chin.

“You brought me a milkshake?” Jade asked him while No-Doze stood to lower the volume of the reggaeton music playing in the background. It seemed to be Nacho’s go-to thing now, despite Summer ending a few days ago. He had walked behind her, while Arturo shut and locked the door before he set the shake down in front of Jade. At that point, she was looking directly up at Nacho behind her and saw him smirk.

“I’d say don’t get used to it but—”

“You keep buying me milkshakes anyway,” Jade finished, smiling again despite her best efforts.

“I guess I do,” Nacho nodded at her.

“Where’s my milkshake, ese?” Arturo spoke up, and Jade brought her eyes off Nacho to face Arturo across form her. “You never bring anyone else milkshakes, and I’ve been doing this longer.” Despite the truth he was speaking, he was showing Nacho a teasing smile, his mask pulled down to his chin as well.

“Es porque no le estás chupando la verga,” No-Doze quipped in Spanish, making both men laugh.

“Suena como qué estás celoso de qué ella no está chupando la tuya,” Nacho quickly shot back, but his tone didn’t match how amused Arturo and No-Doze suddenly were.

“What?” Jade asked, looking between the three of them. “What are you saying?”

“Ask Domingo,” Nacho told her, his back already walking away as he walked towards the nearby boxes of gloves and face masks.

“I don’t even know the words to ask!” Jade complained.

“Instead of dancing, Tuco should have been teaching you Spanish,” Nacho told her, pulling two blue gloves on before slinging a face mask around his ears.

“Dancing is way more fun,” Jade sighed. After, she picked up her milkshake to take a sip, and realized this one was Oreo flavored.

“You’re just gonna have to learn like we all learned English, chica,” Arturo told her.

“How did you all learn English?” she asked, just to muse Arturo.

“No nos enseñaron. Teníamos qué resolverlo,” Nacho stated, taking a seat next to Jade at the table.

“El tiene razón,” Arturo seemed to agree with whatever Nacho had said.

“What?” Jade asked with an eyebrow raised as she looked between them.

“¿Qué?” Nacho responded, and Jade immediately frowned at him.

“Seriously?”

“En serio.”

Jade let out an exasperated sigh before deciding she’d rather just keep cutting meth. “You guys are assholes, for real.” Arturo snickered, along with No-Doze, but it was Nacho who verbally responded, still in Spanish.

“Y eres hermosa.”

With an irritated sigh, Jade chose to ignore them. Instead, she focused on her milkshake and cutting down the meth in front of her.

“Creo qué la hiciste enojar,” No-Doze laughed, and Jade lost the battle with herself not to glance up at him. “Nunca había visto a una chica tan enojada cuando la llamas hermosa.”

“Deberías decirle en inglés,” Arturo added. Jade realized both of them were waiting on Nacho to respond to whatever was being said. He met her eyes after a moment before turning back to his work.

“Hurry up and finish, Domingo needs you at six,” he told her without looking up.

“What?” Jade felt her heart drop. She wasn’t supposed to deal anymore, she wasn’t even supposed to be cutting for much longer.

“Not for what you think,” Nacho added but didn’t elaborate.

Jade rushed through the last couple of ounces she had to cut, and with Nacho’s help, they were out of the building in the next twenty minutes. Jade followed Nacho to his van, rubbing at the bridge of her nose, a red dent left from her mask.

“So, what does Domingo need me for?” Jade asked, sticking the straw of her half-finished milkshake in her mouth before dusting her shirt off with her free hand.

“He needs you to talk to Joel,” Nacho did a lousy job of explaining as Jade stepped up into his van.

“For what?” Jade rose an eyebrow at him.

“About selling the last of that Oxy,” Nacho glanced back at the ice cream shop, despite being well out of earshot and sight of the secret back room.

“You mean you need me to convince him,” Jade corrected Nacho’s words with a monotone. She only received a half-smile from him before he closed the passenger door of his van and walked around the front towards the driver’s side door.

It wasn’t even a ten-minute drive from the ice cream shop to Tampico Furniture, and Jade couldn’t finish her milkshake without risking a brain freeze. She left the final quarter in Nacho’s van, figuring Albuquerque’s fall weather had started to kick in, so it wasn’t too hot out. Unlike what had been usual, Nacho parked in the parking lot and led Jade in through the front doors. She expected him to lead her to the back that way, but instead, he looked like he was scoping out the sales floor.

Jade was going to ask if he was looking for Domingo before she felt his arm wrap around her lower back. His hand settled on her waist as he led her away. She found Domingo a few seconds later, patiently standing with an arguing older couple near a dining table set.

“He’s on one of the couches in the back, give me a few minutes,” Domingo greeted Nacho and Jade as they neared. The couple didn’t even notice he had said anything.

Nacho nodded, and Jade told him, “Good luck with that,” referring to the arguing the couple. He forced a smile before they left him, heading towards the back of the store, where the display couch sets were.

Jade spotted Joel on one of the overstuffed couches, sitting opposite another guy. She realized then that Joel had kept shaving his head, since the last time she had seen him was a few months ago at Jesse’s party. He had the same clothes on as well, baggy jeans, an oversized teeshirt, and a gold chain around his neck.

When she and Nacho approached, Jade was suddenly aware of Nacho’s hand on her waist again. She was fine with acting like Nacho’s girlfriend around the cartel guys and Nacho’s friends, but she was suddenly nervous about Joel seeing Nacho so handsy with her.

He noticed them and nodded, and Jade felt slight relief when he didn’t immediately raise his eyebrow at Nacho’s hand on her waist. “Hey man, Jade,” he greeted them both before standing up. The guy sitting across from him turned his head and stood up as well. He might have been a bit older than them and stood taller than both Jade and Nacho with dull blonde hair and slightly gaunt features. To Jade, he looked a bit nervous.

“Hey,” Nacho greeted them both before gesturing towards the entrance to the doors leading to the back warehouse. “C’mon.” Nacho pulled her along through the swinging doors, with Joel and the new guy following them. 

“So I heard what happened,” Joel started after they had all walked into the office. He shut the door behind them.

“Oh yeah?” Jade asked, instantly knowing he meant her getting jumped. “From Corey?” She hadn’t ever text or called Corey back after that last conversation. She was too nervous he might explode again, and once she felt like she might be able to, it felt too late to do anything but keep silent.

“Uh, yeah. Not really,” Joel started as Nacho finally let go of her waist to walk towards the floor safe. Jade watched him crouch in front of it before turning around to face Joel. “Carlos told me the day after. I told Corey, but he already knew?”

“Yeah, I called him,” Jade loosely crossed her arms before leaning back on the desk, half-sitting on the ledge.

“Oh,” Joel looked to where Nacho was crouched in front of the safe. Jade could only imagine his question of why she’d call her ex when the more obvious choice would be calling Nacho. Still, she didn’t feel like explaining that she was already safe at Nacho’s apartment when she called.

“So he’s using now?” she asked. Joel looked back to her before sitting down in one of the two chairs in front of the desk. The new guy silently followed Joel’s lead.

“Uh, yeah,” Joel answered hesitantly. “You found out?”

“Yeah,” Jade nodded. “How long has that been going on, though? Couldn’t get him to tell me much.” She saw movement next to her and looked to see Nacho setting down an insulated lunch pail next to her on the desk. “Domingo” was written on the side in faded blank ink. Nacho unzipped it and pulled out a rolled-up brown paper bag.

“Few weeks? Couple months, maybe?” Joel answered, and he and Nacho shared a look, before Joel changed his answer, “Uh, I have no idea really.” It must have been going on longer than Nacho knew, Jade realized.

“Here,” Nacho stated, getting Jade’s full attention as he handed her the paper bag. Inside, she found several baggies of the familiar powdered meth as well as a bottle of OxyContin pills. When Jade looked back to him, Nacho was pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Am I telling both of them, or…?” Jade asked as he started for the office door again.

“Yeah,” he nodded, dialing a number on his phone before looking back to her. “That’s Arlo. Arlo, this is Jade,” he quickly introduced them as he put his phone up to his ear.

“Hi,” Jade smiled at him while Nacho left the room.

“Hey,” Arlo responded, not bothering to smile back at her.

“He’s new,” Joel explained.

“Oh, so like, you’re taking him out then? That’s neat,” Jade nodded, grabbing the pill bottle out of the bag before tossing it to Joel.

“Uh, yeah— what’s this?” he asked her, catching the bottle between his hand and chest.

“It’s a super cool new secret that you get to keep until Nacho runs out of them, at least,” Jade explained, feigning enthusiasm.

“So, we’re dealing pills now?” Joel asked, leaning forward slightly in his seat, holding the bottle up.

“Uh, technically? They don’t exist, don’t talk about them to the other guys. Domingo, Carlos, and Nacho all know, but like, never say anything about them because if Tuco finds out, we’re literally all gonna die.”

“What?” Arlo asked, glancing at Joel in confusion. Joel himself looked a little stunned as well.

“How about we don’t play with fire, and you put these back where they came from?” Joel suggested, trying to hand the bottle back to Jade.

“Stupid idea, right? It’s surprising how money turns people into morons,” Jade sighed, losing her smile. She didn’t bother uncrossing her arms to take the bottle back. “Good news for you is there’s probably only twelve hundred or so left, so you won’t have to do this as long as I did.”

“Wait,” Joel pulled back, giving her a critical look. “Nacho had _you_ dealing his pills behind Tuco’s back?”

“Uh, yes,” Jade nodded.

“So is he overprotective of you to make up for that fact or…?”

Jade rolled her eyes before rolling the paper bag of meth up and handing it over to Joel as well. “He’s not that overprotective. I mean, I did get jumped,” she stood from where she was leaning on the desk so she could walk around and sit in the office chair behind it. She kicked her feet up onto the desk after.

“But… but why put you in danger? Why not have me or Corey deal these from the start?” Joel questioned her.

“He didn’t trust you guys,” Jade remembered back to the first day they had started dealing, and Nacho had handed her a bottle of OxyContin pills. “So hey, I guess he trusts you now, so congrats. And, hey,” she turned to Arlo, “Even bigger congrats ‘cause you’re new, and he trusted you like that,” Jade snapped her fingers, but the new guy still looked uncertain of his situation. “It took me a couple weeks at least,” she added, but it didn’t seem to help much.

“Yeah, right,” Joel laughed at her as he stuffed the pill bottle back into the paper bag. “Nacho has been into you since day one.”

“You’re seriously back on this?” Jade sighed. She did realize that “fake dating” Nacho wasn’t helping her argument any, but she also wasn’t sure if Joel knew about that. If he had found out about her getting jumped from Carlos instead of Corey, he might think they’re actually dating.

“Whatever,” Joel shook his head, keeping his smile. “So what, sell the pills and don’t tell anyone about them because if we do, we all die?”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah,” Jade nodded.

“Cool. Can’t be that hard to get rid of a few hundred pills,” Joel looked to Arlo then, who nodded.

~-----~

It didn’t take long for Nacho to come back to the office with Domingo and now Carlos, in tow. Jade reassured them that she had explained the situation to Joel and Arlo. Then Carlos gave them a ride to wherever Domingo had them dealing now. Nacho and Jade left Tampico shortly afterward. She was pleasantly surprised to find that what was left of her milkshake was still cold for the most part.

“I’ve got one more place we got to go, then I can take you home, okay?” Nacho asked as he started the engine of his van.

“Yeah, cool,” Jade pulled the straw out of her mouth and swallowed the ice cream in her mouth before she could answer him. If she was lucky, she might actually be home for dinner and wouldn’t have to dig around the fridge for leftovers like usual.

Jade didn’t know where Nacho was taking her and tried not to worry. From the sound of it, he wasn’t taking her back to El Griego Guiñador to keep cutting meth with Arturo and No-Doze (although he drove almost exactly back that way). She knew he wasn’t doing deals with Pryce anymore, so maybe he had found someone new to buy bulk illicit drugs from? The thought made Jade’s stomach sink.

Jade stayed quiet, finishing off her milkshake as he pulled back onto Zuni road. They stopped a block or so away from the ice cream shop, pulling into some sort of industrial slash garage lot instead.

“What’s this?” Jade asked Nacho as he pulled into the lot and parked his van in the back with several other cars.

“I’ll show you,” he answered her, pulling the keys out of the van’s ignition before getting out. Jade unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the passenger door, though she had always come to expect Nacho to open it for her. He still helped her out of the van, offering up his hand as she hopped out. That same hand moved across her lower back and settled on her waist, keeping her next to him as he walked her into the building. It was true that he had been getting more “handsy” with her, especially after learning that he had been calling her his girlfriend. Nobody else was around, so this didn’t seem to be his usual display of public affection. Still, Jade definitely wasn’t complaining.

His hand left her briefly as he unlocked a roll-up garage door and half-opened it so they could duck underneath.

“I’ll get the lights, hold on,” Nacho told her, leaving her side shortly so he could flip a switch and light up the area they had entered. Once they were on, he turned around to gage Jade’s reaction. She was half expecting some sort of mechanics shop by the looks of the building outside. Instead, she found a workshop behind the garage door, with several long tables and industrial looking sewing machines.

“What is this?” Jade asked him, looking back to where Nacho stood, only to realize he had a hint of nervousness on his features.

“My father’s upholstery shop,” he answered after a moment, and Jade didn’t respond until his words fully sunk in.

“Your… Your father’s shop?” Jade was suddenly nervous herself. She glanced around again, realizing that the workshop being an upholstery shop made sense. Different fabrics were everywhere. There were gutted car seats on the floor in the corner, and there were even several dining chairs hanging from hooks on the ceiling, sans their seats.

“Technically could be mine too…” Nacho walked back towards her so he could place his hand back on her waist and lead her towards one of the sewing machines. His hand dropped from her side again as he took a seat in front of one of them. It seemed to click for her then, as he sat down. His father owned the shop, it could technically be his, he had keys.

“Wait, you… You work here?” Jade asked him with her sudden revelation.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” Nacho nodded, sounding like he was waiting for her to mentally catch up, but Jade laughed.

“No wonder you never told me what your job was! You’re a seamstress?” she couldn’t keep composed with her question.

“Wow,” Nacho leaned back in his stool, away from her, fakely offended. “Wow, really?” he asked as he crossed his arms, but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “No, I’m not a seamstress.”

“You’re sure? Because I see a bunch of material and sewing machines, and that’s what seamstresses have at work,” Jade placed her hands on her hips, trying to argue with him.

“I’m an upholsterer,” Nacho tried forcing a straight, slightly annoyed face, but Jade couldn’t believe him, it was a bluff.

“No way, you made that up. That’s not a word!” Jade laughed, teasing him further.

“It is a word, that’s what I do. Maybe this kind of reaction is why I wouldn’t tell you before what I did when you asked me.”

“Because you’re embarrassed about your job as a seamstress?” Jade couldn’t help herself, and Nacho laughed before trying to stop by running a hand down his face.

“Why are you here?” he asked her then. “Why did I bring you here?”

“I don’t know, I’m still waiting for you to tell me,” Jade dropped her hands from her waist but kept her smile leftover from laughing.

“I’m trying to offer you a job,” Nacho crossed his arms again, slowly becoming more serious.

“As a seamstress?” Jade asked him. “I can’t sew, I’ve never actually sewed anything ever. I barely passed Home Ec in school.”

“Not a seamstress—Upholsterer, no,” he corrected himself quickly. “Like a… Secretary? Receptionist?”

“Wait, seriously?” Jade asked, her expression falling slack as she finally became serious as well.

“Yeah,” Nacho nodded in confirmation, and Jade’s mouth nearly fell open.

“Wait, like… A—a real job? An actual job?”

“Yes, a real job. On the books and everything,” Nacho confirmed, standing up from the stool he was on.

“And I’d be doing what?” Jade asked him.

Nacho shrugged. “Receptionist things.”

“Wait, like… I wouldn’t be cutting— or—or dealing?” Jade asked, trying to clarify what Nacho was saying. There had to be a catch. 

“No. No more of that.”

“But, like, would I go with you to buy—”

“No,” Nacho answered her quickly, cutting her off. “No, you’re done. That whole thing with the cartel is over for you.”

Jade couldn’t think for a second. “… Seriously?” she asked him and got a reassuring nod. 

A heavy rush of air left Jade in a relieved sigh. After a second of letting it sink in, Nacho continued on. “I did the math. Using this place I can launder the eighteen grand plus whatever else you’ve made cutting that you have under your bed, believably, in about a year.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Jade told him but was too happy to honestly care at that point. She was close to tears just thinking about not having to sell Oxy ever again or having to see Tuco for drops.  
Jade would never have to sit on that fucking bench or sit in a room filled with meth dust and boredom. She technically didn’t need a job, but working with Nacho ensured that they’d keep seeing each other. Plus, she’d have something to do and would be able to utilize her cash legally if she wanted.

“That means don’t cry,” he told her quickly. Jade rubbed at her eyes, though she wasn’t exactly crying just yet. Her fingers came back wet but thankfully void of running eyeliner and mascara. “Hey,” he added, and stood up so he could comfort her.

“I’m not crying yet,” Jade laughed, accepting his hug. Jade stood on her tiptoes so she could rest her chin on Nacho’s shoulder when she hugged him back. “I’m just happy.”

“Well, you’re essentially making about twelve dollars a day, so don’t be too happy,” Nacho let her slip free from his arms when she took a step backward.

“I don’t understand,” she laughed. In all honesty, Jade had no idea how money laundering worked.

“I’ve gotta make it look like you’re getting paid something if my dad noses around payroll,” Nacho shrugged before loosely crossing his arms over his chest.

“Right, okay,” Jade nodded before taking a steadying breath. “So, hey, about that. When am I meeting your dad?” Jade asked, raising her eyebrow and smiling deviously.

“Yeah, so…” Nacho sighed. He rubbed at the back of his neck before crossing his arms again. He looked quite unsettled, and Jade found herself enjoying it. “I brought you this late because we’re closed on weekends. He also doesn’t typically work Mondays.”

“Really?” Jade immediately faked a pout. Nacho had literally done everything possible to avoid her meeting his father at that moment. “Aren’t we ‘dating’?” she asked, making air quotes with her hands, “Shouldn’t I meet him? Or is that not a thing now?”

“I’m delaying this as long as possible… I also have to tell him,” Nacho told her, without clarifying what he meant.

“You haven’t told him what? That you’re hiring me?” Jade asked, losing her smile while avoiding the “dating” topic like Nacho had. “Can you do that?”

“What, hire you?” Nacho rose his own eyebrows. “I can do whatever. Technically half this place is mine.”

“So, does that make you my boss?” Jade asked him, unable to stop herself from smiling again.

“I’ve been your boss, this isn’t any different.”

“It’s way different. Like now, when I call you an asshole, you can like, put me in time out or something,” Jade laughed.

“Oh yeah. We have this scary time out closet we lock guys in when they run their mouths,” Nacho nodded and even pointed towards a closed door in the workshop.

“Wait, seriously?” Jade asked, almost believing him.

“That’s a bathroom,” he laughed at her. “What job puts employees in timeout? This isn’t daycare.”

“Fuck if I know. I’ve never had a job before,” Jade shrugged and found her smile growing.

Nacho shook his head at her before looking around the workshop again. “Come on, I’ll show you the front.” With his hand back on her waist, Nacho led her to the front of the upholstery shop. Coming through a short hallway, they ended up on one side of a front counter. Nacho left her to grab a stool before setting it down in front of Jade at the counter.

“So, front door, phone, computer,” Nacho was pointing at the self-evident things. “I’m almost always in the back if you need me, where we just were. The office is right down there,” Nacho showed Jade, pointing to an adjacent hallway that ran perpendicular to the one they just left. It was darker and harder for Jade to make anything out since Nacho had neglected to turn on any lights besides the ones in the workshop.

When Jade turned back to him, he shrugged and leaned forward on the front counter. “It’s all self-explanatory, right?”

“What, so I’m going to sit here and just greet people?” Jade asked before sitting on the stool.

“Yeah, pretty much. You think you can do that?” Nacho asked her, raising an eyebrow in mock scrutiny.

“Didn’t you tell me once that my one talent is talking to people?” Jade laughed at him. “I can talk to literally anyone.”

Nacho nodded, looking around the front of the upholstery shop from where they were behind the counter. Jade noticed a few chairs and a water dispenser and coffee maker. Besides that, the only other things were fabric samples, tons of them. They were on rings, in binders, on cardboard plaques hanging on the walls.

“You want the job then?” Nacho turned back to her.

“It’s literally that easy? I say yes, and I’m magically hired?” Jade asked him, once again smiling.

“Magically? No. Legitimately, yes,” Nacho laughed at her verbiage.

“Then yes,” Jade told him regardless and extended her hand for Nacho to shake as if they were making a deal. It was partially in jest but also felt like the right thing to do. Nacho looked down before reaching for her hand and gently shaking it. “Now, when do I meet your dad?”

The smile Nacho had started to fade before he stood straight and rubbed at his face. “Uh, soon. I have to finalize this first.”

“Didn’t we just shake on it?” Jade asked him.

“New Mexico likes paper more than handshakes,” he sighed while explaining.

“You’re gonna make me fill out paperwork?” Jade faked a pout.

“Yeah, tons of it,” Nacho placed his hands on his hips.

“Nevermind, screw that.”

“You already shook on it,” Nacho laughed again, and Jade joined him this time.

“Fine, whatever. I’ll fill out all your stupid paperwork,” she told Nacho, while still half laughing. Through the windows behind his back, Jade saw an older Chevy truck pull into the lot and park where she assumed customers would. “Aren’t we closed right now?”

“Yeah,” Nacho answered before catching on to what Jade meant. He followed her line of sight and turned around to see the truck himself, an older man stepping out. “Goddamnit,” Nacho said under his breath, and Jade watched his relaxed composure crumble.

“What’s Goddamnit? Nacho?” Jade asked. Instead of answering, he looked around the shop before ushering Jade off her stool. He almost acted like he was looking for a place to hide her, but they were too late. The man had already unlocked the front door and stepped inside the shop, a bell announcing his presence.

“¿Mijo?” he asked, only giving Jade a quick glance before locking his eyes on Nacho. Jade looked between the two of them, starting to put two and two together. He was an older, balding, mustached gentleman, and the fact that he had keys made Jade instantly think that this was Nacho’s father. She couldn’t believe her luck or Nacho’s misfortune. When Jade turned back to Nacho, she saw him addled with panic. Right, his dad wasn’t supposed to be working today.

“No esperaba que vinieras tan tarde,” Nacho replied to the man in Spanish.

“Pensé en hacer un poco de trabajo antes de reunirme con mis amigos por las cartas. ¿Quien es ella?” Jade heard him ask, and his eyes were back on her. Jade immediately smiled, though she had no idea what was being said. 

“Uh, Papa—” Nacho started, confirming Jade’s suspicions. Jade immediately cut him off in her excitement.

“Hey,” she smiled and moved around the front counter before holding her right hand out for Nacho’s father. “I’ m—uh, my nombre es Jade.” She knew she butchered the phrase, but at least she tried. Nacho’s father took her hand, firmly shaking it as would be expected, but he didn’t look nearly as happy to meet her.

“¿Mijo?” his father prompted as her hand fell away from his. “¿Por qué está ella detrás del mostrador?”

“Le estoy mostrando todo... iba a contratarla,” Nacho seemed to deflate under his father’s gaze, and Jade was starting to feel worried. New Mexico didn’t favor handshakes, and apparently, neither did his father.

“¿Contratarla? Como tapicero?” His father’s eyebrows rose at whatever Nacho had told him.

“Uh, no, Papa. Como recepcionista.”

“¿Una recepcionista? She speaks Spanish?” his father asked, and Jade glanced between them quickly while Nacho tried to respond.

“She can come to me,” he tried, but his father wasn’t buying it. “Look,” Nacho told him before joining Jade where she was standing. “Repeat this, okay? ¿Necesitas a alguien qué hable español?”

“Uh, say it one more time,” Jade nervously glanced between Nacho and his father. She wasn’t sure she caught all of the words and didn’t want to butcher the phrase.

“Necesitas a alguien,” he started, slower this time, and Jade immediately repeated him.

“Necesitas a alguien.”

“Qué hable,” he continued, and Jade did the same.

“Qué hable.”

“Español.”

“Español,” Jade finished the phrase before saying it all in one go. “¿Necesitas a alguien qué hable español?” She looked to Nacho’s father with another smile. Her pronunciation might have been slightly off, but she felt like she had nailed that phrase.

“¿Ves? Ella aprenderá,” Nacho told his father. “Necesitamos a alguien en el frente.”

“Ignacio,” his father sighed, and Jade knew that tone. It was the tone her own father used to use when she’d ask for a new toy or for extra allowance as a kid. He’d still probably use it on her if she asked him for anything nowadays. Nacho’s father was going to tell him no.

“Papa, necesito hablar contigo. Jade, stay here, okay?” Nacho seemed to realize the same thing she had. He stepped back behind the counter, motioning for his father to follow him into the dark hallway towards the office. Nacho looked back to her while pulling his father along, giving her a look of reassurance. Maybe Nacho had figured out how to change his father’s mind when Jade could never manage to change her own dad’s mind.

“Uh, cool. Okay,” she nodded, watching Nacho flip a light switch on before closing the door behind them.

Silence followed, and Jade stood in place, but her eyes wandered around the shop. With the lights now on in the hallway, she could see more of it. Near the office looked like a storeroom with a mish-mash of a hundred different fabrics. Through that storage room, she could see another way into the back where the sewing machines were. Next to the office was what looked to be another bathroom with a water fountain on the wall and… that was about it. There wasn’t much else to the upholstery shop.

Jade stood there for a good five minutes if the analog clock on the wall behind the counter was correct, waiting for Nacho and his father to reemerge. From how anxious Nacho looked, Jade wondered if this was a bad thing. He had said that he brought her here on a day his dad wouldn’t be in, he probably didn’t tell his dad anything yet about Jade.

A sudden wave of disappointment hit her, and Jade felt like she might be trapped either dealing for Domingo or cutting with the other guys. This, a legitimate job, seemed suddenly too good to be true.

When the office door opened again, Jade was caught briefly off guard, before forcing that wide grin back onto her lips. Nacho’s father had exited first, and then Nacho followed, closing the door behind him. He looked up at Jade after, and, seemingly noticing her unease, gave her a thumbs-up behind his father’s back. Instantly her smile felt more genuine.

“Jade,” he caught up with his dad, who was standing once again in front of Jade. “This is my father, Manuel,” he suitably introduced his father this time, and this time, Manuel held his hand out. Instead of shaking her hand this time, he instead clasped hers inside both of his.

“I am very happy to meet you, Jade,” he smiled as he carefully spoke to her with a thick accent. Even her name was pronounced with an endearing “Y” sound instead of the typical “J.” After, he let go of her hand.

She followed along with it, making sure that she properly met Nacho’s father.

“It’s awesome to finally meet you, Mr. Varga—”

“No,” he stopped her quickly, looking to Nacho. “Dile a ella, mijo,” he started before looking to Jade again, speaking in English. “You call me Papa.”

“I can call you Papa?” Jade asked him, excited where Nacho was suddenly against it.

“What? No, Papa. ¿Por qué?” Nacho asked him.

“Dijiste que la amas. ¿Verdad?” Nacho’s father, who was now permanently dubbed Papa in Jade’s mind, chuckled at his son. “¿Cuándo puede ella comenzar a trabajar? When can you work?” he turned back to Jade. She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, and the sudden surprise of Nacho’s arm wrapping around her and his hand settling on her waist kept her quiet.

“Ella puede comenzar mañana,” Nacho answered for her, and Jade caught the word “mañana.” Even if she didn’t, Nacho asked her, “Tomorrow morning’s good, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Jade nodded, first at Nacho and then at his father.

“This, muy bueno. I am happy,” Papa turned to Nacho, and he nodded. “It’s nice to meet you,” he added, looking once more to Jade before he turned and went back into the office.

“Holy shit, I was almost convinced he wasn’t going for it,” Jade whispered to him, making sure that Papa couldn’t hear her.

“Honestly? He wasn’t,” Nacho admitted, his hands moving to his hips. When he saw the look on Jade’s face he before smiled.

“What’d you say? He seemed super excited just now,” Jade questioned before Nacho nodded back towards the front of the upholstery shop.

“Just threw numbers and stats at him. I said you were great with people,” he led her back through to the workshop area.

“Seriously? Your dad’s way more lax than mine. I’d still be arguing with him,” Jade admitted.

“Perks of being an only child?” Nacho shrugged, but Jade felt like he wasn’t saying something, though she decided not to press it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Es porque no le estás chupando la verga.” — That’s because you’re not sucking his cock.
> 
> “Suena como que estás celoso de que ella no está chupando la tuya.” — It sounds like you’re jealous that she’s not sucking yours.
> 
> “No nos enseñaron. Teníamos que resolverlo.” — We weren’t taught. We just had to figure it out.
> 
> “El tiene razón.” — He’s right.
> 
> “¿Qué?” — What?
> 
> “En serio.” — Seriously.
> 
> “Y eres hermosa.” — And you’re beautiful.
> 
> “Creo que la hiciste enojar. Nunca había visto a una chica tan enojada cuando la llamas hermosa.” — I think you made her mad. I’ve never seen a girl so pissed when you call them beautiful.
> 
> “Deberías decirle en inglés.” — You should tell her in English.
> 
> “No esperaba que vinieras tan tarde.” — I wasn’t expecting you to come in this late.
> 
> “Pensé en hacer un poco de trabajo antes de reunirme con mis amigos por las cartas. ¿Quien es ella?” — I thought I’d get some work done before meeting my friends for cards. Who is this?
> 
> “My nombre es Jade.” — My name is Jade. (buchered)
> 
> “¿Mijo?¿Por qué está ella detrás del mostrador?” — Why is she behind the counter?
> 
> “Le estoy mostrando todo... iba a contratarla.” — I’m showing her around… I was going to hire her.
> 
> “¿Contratarla? Como tapicero?” — Hire her? As an upholsterer?
> 
> “Uh, no, Papa. Como recepcionista.” — Uh, no, Papa. As a receptionist.
> 
> “¿Una recepcionista?” — A receptionist?
> 
> “¿Necesitas a alguien que hable español?” — Do you need someone who speaks Spanish?
> 
> “¿Ver? Ella aprenderá. Necesitamos a alguien en el frente.” — See? She’ll learn. We need someone in the front.
> 
> “Papa, necesito hablar contigo.” — Papa, I need to speak with you.
> 
> “Dile a ella, mijo.” — Tell her, my son.
> 
> “¿Por qué?” — Why?
> 
> “Dijiste que la amas, ¿verdad?” — You said you love her, correct?
> 
> “¿Cuándo puede ella comenzar a trabajar?” — When can she start working?
> 
> “Ella puede comenzar mañana.” — She can start tomorrow.
> 
> Guys. _Guys_.
> 
> I don’t even know where to start. There’s so much to say about this update. Maybe I should start by telling you that I went insane and finished five chapters since I saw you guys two weekends ago? Yeah, I finally struggled out of my mini writing slump and wrote all of chapter 26 in a single day, then throughout this last week, I finished chapters 19-22. I’ve wanted to get back to weekly updates forever and pretty much told myself if I could finish all four chapters for June, I could start posting weekly again. I’m going to try and use this momentum to keep going and finish another four chapters by the time July hits us, so with any luck I might be able to post weekly updates throughout the Summer 😍 I’m also wanting to get my ass in gear and finish a few Nacho POV scenes as well because I’m sure at this point you’re all dying to know what he told his father to get him to agree to hire Jade 😉
> 
> So, doing research about filming locations and such, apparently, Hector's ice cream shop and Nacho's father's Upholstery shop are on the same street, literally within a three-minute walk of each other? The upholstery shop also isn't that far from Menaul boulevard (there Tampico is, the address literally disappeared from the wiki though) or Loyola's restaurant (where Mike always eats). I dunno, I just thought that was cool.
> 
> By the way, Jade working at the upholstery shop with Nacho and his father was that plot point I was anxious about because it had come up already in another Nacho/OC fic (“Tip” by multifandomhaven). Another thing I was worried about was the scene with Pryce, Nacho, and Jade in the second scene of this chapter. I honestly don’t know how many times I’ve rewatched that damn hummer scene or the “Switch” table read on youtube.
> 
> Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone so much for reading and leaving kudos and comments on the last chapter. I hope you’re all doing well and are staying safe. We’ll eventually get through this year. Also, I want to thank my boyfriend for beta reading and helping with the Spanish. There was one word or phrase he didn’t like in this (saying it was incorrect or that nobody in Mexico would speak like that), but... we forgot what it was, so the Spanish may not be 100% in this update.


	20. Primadonna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade starts her new job at the upholstery shop, but still manages to get caught up in Nacho's less legitimate dealings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Marina's song "Pimadonna".
> 
> This chapter is about 20 novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 39 minutes to read.
> 
> This update moves our spoiler warning up to Season 2, Episode 2, "Cobbler". There are no other warnings needed for this chapter, but if you haven't seen the actual squat cobbler video that Mark Proksch did then seriously go watch it 🤣 Just maybe not in front of people. Or at work or at school.
> 
> Lastly, the Spanish dialogue in this chapter is translated in the notes at the end.

She didn’t wake up to her alarm that morning; instead, it was her father who came into her room to shut it off before shaking her awake.

“Diana?” he asked, and she grumbled some incoherent response back, burying her head further into her pillow. “Why’s your alarm going off at six-thirty?”

She sighed, trying to remember why, before speaking into her pillow, “Work.” Though her voice was quiet and muffled, her father still somehow understood.

“What do you mean work?” he asked her. Immediately sounding less gentle.

“I have a job,” she sighed and gave up on trying to sleep. She needed to shower and get ready anyway, Nacho would be there to pick her up within the next hour.

“When did you—you have a job? A real job?” her dad took a step back from her bed as Jade opened her eyes to squint at him and watched as his hands went to his hips.

“Yeah, I got a job,” she reiterated.

“…Doing what?” he asked her, and if Jade wasn’t mistaken, he almost sounded upset.

If she were any more awake, Jade would probably have tried to come up with some extreme sounding profession like circus elephant trainer or parachute technician. All she could muster was “A-Z Fine Upholstery.”

“Up-upholstery?” her father rose both eyebrows at her. “You’re working at an upholstery shop?” he asked her, immediately sounding incredulous.

“Yeah,” Jade let her eyes close. With her father asking all these questions, there was no way she’d fall back asleep.

“How did you get a job at an upholstery shop? You can’t sew, you barely passed Home Ec!” her father told her. He was acting as if Jade may have forgotten that she had spent a week trying to convince her Home Economics teacher to let her pass with a bare-bones sixty percent, saying “it’s not my fault that the oven keeps burning everything I put in it!” and “I couldn’t finish the quilt because I kept pricking my fingers!”

“Mr. Bertelstein was a nice guy,” Jade smiled and opened her eyes again to take in her father’s exasperated expression. “Look, dad. I know the owner’s son, okay? He gave me a job greeting people.”

“For how long?” he asked her.

“I dunno. Until I get fired?” Jade shrugged, even though she was still lying in bed with her covers up to her chin.

“What about school?” he questioned her. Before he could finish his question, Jade groaned before rolling over onto her stomach.

“Go away, I need to get ready for work,” she whined, raising her voice so he could understand as she spoke once again into her pillow.

“Diana—”

“I don’t want to talk about college,” she kept up her tone before pulling the pillow over her head, laying her cheek against her mattress as she held the pillow in place. “I gotta get ready for work.”

Her father sighed, and after a moment he said, “I’m telling your mother. And for the record, this is a horrible idea.”

“Be happy for me!” she yelled into her mattress and thought about kicking her legs for emphasis as if she were a three-year-old having a fit, but she was too tired. She heard her door shut and finally lifted her head, looking behind her at the closed bedroom door as her pillow fell back onto the bed.

It took Jade a full ten minutes to drag herself out of bed after her dad left her room, catching herself falling asleep twice. She didn’t bother getting dressed and headed straight to the bathroom to shower. By the time she got out, it was already past seven, and Jade decided to forgo breakfast and brushed her teeth instead. She got dressed in her room after and then stood in front of her closet mirror, trying to put basic makeup on. While struggling to smoothly line her eyes with black eyeliner and not get mascara smudges on her face, Jade had flashbacks to when she would have to get ready for high school. Even back then, she had managed to go to bed by at least midnight every school night. Last night she had laid in bed, half anxious and half excited until about three in the morning.

She was convincing herself that her eyeliner was fine when she heard her phone beep on her nightstand by her bed. She glanced at it in annoyance through the mirror, already knowing it was Nacho. After reading the backward time on her alarm clock, Jade saw that it wasn’t seven-thirty yet. It took her a moment to gather the energy to walk the four steps across her room and grab her phone off the charger so she could check her new text.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
You up? 

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
no im dead

She sighed, slipping her phone into her jean’s back pocket before grabbing her keys and wallet from the top of her dresser. She then made her way out of her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Dragging her feet, Jade walked into the kitchen to get some water. Jade figured she had a couple minutes before she had to walk out to the usual spot where Nacho would pick her up.

“I thought your father was kidding when he said you had a job,” she was immediately greeted by her mother, who was pouring coffee into a thermos. She was already dressed and, judging by the clean dishes drying by the sink, she and Jade’s father had already eaten breakfast.

“Nope,” Jade told her, grabbing a glass before filling it with water from the fridge.

“That’s so… sudden. When did you get hired?” her mom asked, putting the pot back in the coffeemaker and capping her thermos.

“Like, yesterday,” Jade shrugged, pausing drinking her water to answer. In her back pocket, Jade heard her phone beep and ignored it for the moment.

“Yesterday,” her mom nodded. She was using a discrediting tone, and Jade managed not to roll her eyes. “And at an upholstery shop? Your dad said you knew the son of the owner?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jade nodded, leaning against the counter near the fridge. Her mom sounded about as judgmental as her father had, but wasn’t flat out telling her that she was disappointed. Instead, she took a different approach.

“Well, I’m proud of you, even if you didn’t talk to us about it first.”

“Thanks, mom,” Jade ignored the last half of her sentence before finally pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“Do you need a ride to work? Your dad and I can leave a bit early,” her mom offered as Jade read Nacho’s text.

From: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
Too bad. Im waiting at the usual spot.

“No, I got a ride already. They’re waiting, so I gotta go,” Jade told her mom. Quickly, she dumped her unfinished water into the sink before rinsing her glass and placing it with the clean dishes instead of actually washing it.

“Okay, have a good first day, honey,” her mom disapprovingly eyed the glass as Jade left the kitchen.

“Thanks, mom,” Jade said as she walked into the living room. “Peace, dad, I’m leaving.”

“Okay,” he sighed, glancing over his newspaper as she walked to the door. “We’ll talk tonight,” he added, but it wasn’t a question.

“Fine,” Jade sighed before letting herself out. She started down the street and in two minutes she was getting into Nacho’s van. Jade didn’t say anything to him. She didn’t even look at him as she kicked her sneakers off before pulling her feet up onto the seat, holding her knees to her chest before leaning her head against the passenger window.

“Are you normally like this in the morning?” Nacho asked her after a brief silence, where Jade figured he was staring at her. She didn’t know for sure; her eyes were already closed.

“Just kill me, I hate mornings,” Jade told him seriously as he started the engine to his van.

“When did you go to bed last night?” he asked her, and she grunted in response before realizing he was seriously asking and waiting for an answer.

“Like three.”

“You went to bed at three in the morning?” Nacho asked her. “I’m surprised you’re coherent,” he added when she only grunted again at him.

“Shut up,” she sighed, eyes still closed.

“Good thing I bought you coffee,” he told her, and Jade opened her eyes to look at him and then at the cup holder to find that he was telling the truth.

“Is it Satan coffee?” Jade asked, remembering the black coffee that he had given her once forever ago when she was still dealing.

“No,” Nacho laughed at her, “It’s not Satan coffee. It’s probably still too hot, though.”

“Thanks, Nacho,” Jade sighed before closing her eyes again, not bothering to even grab for her coffee.

“Did you eat breakfast at all?” he questioned next.

“Not hungry,” she responded simply to Nacho. She honestly wasn’t, she was too tired to eat.

The ride from her neighborhood to the upholstery shop seemed to fly by her. Before Jade knew it, she was waking up to the easy stop Nacho had pulled into the lot with. Immediately after, he cut the engine, and she heard him sigh.

“I’m awake, don’t sigh at me,” Jade groaned, but made no effort to move from her position leaning on the window or to even open her eyes.

“I’m not sighing at you,” Nacho told her, “I’m sighing at what’s about to happen.”

“What’s about to happen?” Jade asked, his statement giving her the willpower to open her eyes and look over at where he sat.

“You’ll see. Grab your coffee,” Nacho motioned to it before opening the driver’s side door of his van and getting out. Jade blinked, looking at the coffee before grabbing it and popping the lid off. Even though Nacho had told her it wasn’t straight-up black coffee, he also hadn’t given her creamer or sugar packets. The liquid inside was a smooth tan color, and she trusted he had already put enough of each inside. When she popped the lid back into place, Nacho had already opened her door. With her free hand, she accepted his help out of the van, and he closed the door behind her as she tested the coffee.

“Did I ever tell you how I take coffee?” Jade asked after her sip. It was no longer too hot and had the surprisingly pleasant taste of hazelnut.

“I guessed,” he shrugged, and Jade smiled at him.

“You guessed great,” she complimented him, but his eyes were already on the half-open roll up garage door they had entered through last night. Inside, she could hear Tejano music playing among the jarring sound of several industrial sewing machines running at once.

“Come on,” he nodded before gently guiding her along with a hand on the small of her back.

“What am I walking into?” Jade asked the frown on his face, and as they approached the garage door, he took in a deep breath to get rid of it.

“Hopefully, nothing too bad.”

“Nacho?” Jade asked, but he had already reached down to raise the door up enough for them to walk under. Her eyes left him, scanning the workshop where she found five men working at the seven stations. He stepped under first, his hand still on the door, and she followed him.

“Hola, Ignacio!” The man closest to them shouted over the music and machines as Nacho half-closed the garage door again. “Whoa,” he added as he looked over and saw Jade. “¿Es esta tu amante?”

“Buenos Dias, Jorge,” Nacho seemed to ignore the question asked.

“¿Su amante?” another man looked up, and Jade glanced to Nacho, unsure of what to expect. “If she’s not, I call dibs.”

“You can’t call dibs, the lady barely walked in two seconds ago!” a third scolded him before standing up and walking over to greet her. “Good morning, Nacho, and good morning miss lady,” he greeted her, enthusiastically shaking her hand for a second or two too long.

“Uh good morning,” she smiled at him regardless, taking in his tall, lanky figure. He had dirty blonde hair poking out from beneath a well-loved UNM Lobos cap. When he smiled back at her, she also noticed he was missing a tooth.

“Morning, Clem,” Nacho nodded. Jade realized he had taken a step backward and crossed his arms as if waiting for events to unfold. She rose an eyebrow at him, before the second guy to speak up had walked over to greet her as well.

“Buenos dias mamacita,” he accepted her hand when she offered, but instead, he bent down to kiss her knuckles.

Jade almost laughed at how absurd it was before looking back to Nacho with her eyebrows raised high in question. It was also the second time she was called “mamacita” and had her hand kissed in Nacho’s presence by one of his associates.

“You can come sit over by me, over here,” he led her away from where she stood, back to where he had been sitting at his sewing machine.

“Sal, you’re gonna scare her away,” the man named Clem complained as Jade complied, following him back to his stool.

“Deja de ser un idiota. I’m so sorry, miss. Ignore this fool,” the first man to greet Nacho stated.

“Oh, it’s, uh, it’s okay—”

“Hey, what am I missing?” the fourth guy, who had had his headphones on over his ears, now had them down around his neck as he sized up Jade as she passed. “Where’d you get this fine damsel?” he asked as Jade sat down on Sal’s stool, and she actually laughed, half-surprised and half-embarrassed, before looking to Nacho for help. He offered her none as he stood near the garage door with Clem, his arms still crossed and a half-amused smile on his lips.

“Nacho brought her in,” Sal explained, pulling a stool from another station up next to where Jade sat. He was in the middle of sewing fabric over a foam pad, and Jade was suddenly self-conscious about the coffee she was holding. In fear of spilling it somehow, she took a large drink.

“Imbéciles,” the first man, who was now sitting across from her, shook his head in disapproval. He was older, like Clem, and had white peppered through his slicked-back hair. The name sewn into his uniform was Jorge.

“What’s your name, girl?” Sal asked her, but before she could answer, the other man next to her, the one with the headphones and the name tag Andre asked another question, but to Nacho.

“Where’d you find a girl like this, man?”

“Uh, at a party,” Nacho answered shortly before finally dropping his arms and walking over to the workstations. Clem had also walked back to his sewing machine, sitting across from Jade next to Jorge. “This is Jade,” he introduced her, and a sudden recognition flashed across everyone’s faces.

“Wait, this is Jade?” Sal asked, dropping his flirtatious attitude. He looked back to Jade as she smiled and gave a slight nod. “Una guera,” he looked back up to Nacho with a broad smile and approving nod, “Bien por ti.”

“So, this is your girl?” Jorge laughed, “And you’re letting these fools bother her?”

“She’s her own person,” Nacho shrugged, but she had just caught on that Nacho must have at least mentioned her, by name, to these guys.

“Hold on, you talk about me?” she asked him.

“Of course he talks about you,” Andre answered her before Nacho could. “He doesn’t shut up about you.”

“He doesn’t— That guy,” Jade physically pointed, “Whose mastered one-word responses, doesn’t shut up about me?” she asked, her eyebrows now raised at Andre.

“Well, when he does talk,” Clem smiled at her.

“You talk about me?” Jade asked Nacho again.

“I complain about you,” Nacho answered, but the reaction from the four men told Jade he was lying.

“You do some odd complainin’, man,” Andre called him out first.

“¿Porqué estás mintiendo?” Sal laughed in Spanish.

“He doesn’t complain about you, miss Jade,” Clem reassured her, and she took a sip of her coffee before raising an accusatory eyebrow at Nacho.

“So, what are you bringing her around here for, Nacho?” Jorge asked him.

“For work,” Jade answered herself, looking across the workstations at him.

“For work?” Jorge repeated her and looked to Nacho himself, who nodded.

“Estos idiotas comenzaron a coquetear con nuestra nueva recepcionista,” Nacho explained in Spanish, and Jade wasn’t sure what was said.

“¿Necesitamos una recepcionista?” Andre asked, looking to Jade again with slight confusion.

“¿Ella habla español?” Sal asked, but Jade definitely understood his question.

“Of course I speak Spanish,” she told him confidently, though it was a total lie. To try and hide that she drank more of her hazelnut coffee.

“She doesn’t speak Spanish,” Nacho corrected her statement immediately anyway.

“I can speak Spanish— I spoke Spanish with your dad last night,” Jade pointed out.

“You spoke Spanish at my father,” Nacho laughed. “Go on, show them your Spanish,” he pushed afterwords.

Jade, though she knew she was about to fail miserably, sat a bit taller and cleared her throat. “Duermo tarde español. ¿Una hora más? No se rasque mi coche.”

“Well... That was Spanish,” Jorge shrugged, and Nacho laughed in response.

“It was gibberish. Come on, we have paperwork to do,” Nacho nodded towards the front of the shop.

“She’ll learn it, we’ll teach you, miss,” Clem told her optimistically.

“Thank you, Clem,” Jade stood up from her stool, so she could follow Nacho.

“Hey, Jade, if this fool isn’t doing anything with you for lunch, come hit me up,” Sal smiled and winked at her.

“Sure thing,” she told him, though didn’t take it as a serious offer. Nacho led her away from the workshop, and once she was in the hallway, she heard the whir of sewing machines and more Tejano music.

“Is that what you were so worried about?” Jade asked as Nacho led her to the stool left by them last night behind the counter.

“It went better than I expected,” Nacho shrugged. “If you couldn’t tell, Sal and Andre are flirts.”

“Nope, had no idea,” Jade told him sarcastically as she sat on her stool. Jade leaned down and laid her head on the cool surface of the counter. Even with her coffee and the recent introductions to her new coworkers, she was still exhausted.

“Stay here, I’ll grab your papers form the office,” Nacho told her, already heading towards the door.

“What do I do if a customer walks in?” she stopped him.

“In the next minute?” he rose his scarred eyebrow at her, “They won’t. Lobby's closed until nine.”

“What about later?” she pressed.

“Just come get me,” he said before disappearing into the office. Jade waited for him, and roughly a minute later, he emerged.

“Am I supposed to always come get you?” she continued questioning him as he set a stack of papers down next to her, before handing her a ballpoint pen. Jade lifted her head off the counter and looked over the first paper.

“No, you’ll get the hang of greeting people. Just come get me until you do, though. Have fun with those,” he tapped the stack of papers before making his way back towards the workshop. “

“Gee, thanks, “Jade sighed, before setting the paper in front of her and clicking the pen open.

~-----~

Two hours into her day, and Jade had already called her mom about five times while filling out the stack of forms Nacho had given her. She had finished the coffee that Nacho bought her and then used the coffeemaker in the lobby to refill the large cup, before finishing that off. Currently, she was refraining from calling her mom a sixth time to ask what the hell a “maiden name “was.

Jade’s knee was bouncing, and she was idly tapping the pen on the counter while staring at the stupid box. She glanced at her cell phone on the counter next to the forms. Her mom had been annoyed when she called the last time to ask her for her social security number. The call before that when she needed her bank account and routing numbers wasn’t much better.

“How’s that going?” she heard Nacho ask behind her and she spun around on the stool to face him.

“Like... terrible,” she set her pen down to rub at her face.

“That bad? Really?” he asked her sarcastically as he leaned on the counter next to her before handing her a protein bar. For a brief, happy second, Jade thought it was a candy bar as she took it before she actually read the wrapper.

“Nacho?” she looked back to him with a raised eyebrow, “What the fuck is this?”

His smile was immediate, and she watched him shake his head. “My best attempts at getting your breakfast without actually leaving work,” he answered honestly, and she almost felt bad for what she was about to say.

“This is disgusting. Really?”

“They aren’t that bad,” he laughed, “Try it.”

She knew that she’d hate it, but just for his amusement, Jade tore the wrapper open. Before taking a bite, she observed the deceiving chocolate-coated bar. When she finally talked herself into it, she immediately frowned at the chalky taste.

Nacho started laughing again at her expression.

“This is funny?” she asked him, trying to swallow the bite.

“It is, actually. Yes,” Nacho admitted.

“Do you eat these? Like, do humans eat these?” Jade asked him before taking another reluctant bite. Though it was gross, she was hungry from not eating breakfast.

“Yeah. They’re for working out,” he informed Jade, and she frowned at the bar again.

“Really? So this will give me abs?” she asked.

“Totally,” Nacho answered, keeping a straight face this time, and it was Jade’s turn to laugh.

“You’re such a dork,” she said before taking another bite. “So, hey? Can I ask you a stupid question?” she set the half-eaten bar down so she could cross her arms, “You can’t judge me.”

“Shoot,” he said, loosely crossing his own arms to mirror hers.

“What the fuck’s a maiden name?” Jade asked him and watched Nacho struggle not to smile.

“Uh, honestly?” he rose his scarred eyebrow.

“I said you can’t judge me,” Jade sighed before collapsing on top of the paperwork on the counter, her head in her arms. “I wasn’t taught how to do this in school, I was taught how to solve for ‘X.’ Couldn’t even do that, apparently.”

“It’s just paperwork, not math homework,” Nacho told her, and Jade sighed heavily.

“Well I hate paperwork.”

“A maiden name is your mother’s name,” Nacho explained, and she turned her head in her arms to look up at him.

“What, Judith?” she asked him.

“No, her original name. From her parents,” he tried explaining, but Jade’s answer was the same.

“Judith?”

“No, her last name,” Nacho told Jade, “Like your maiden name is Martin. Understand?”

“Oh,” Jade did understand but then was confused. “So like the name originally on her birth certificate or the name she had legally changed it to before marrying my dad?”

“What?” he asked her, sounding confused himself.

“So, she had her name legally changed when she was in high school because she was bullied. So, it was Pecker, but it was changed to Smith because of the bullying,” Jade explained, and Nacho kept his eyebrow raised.

“What’s it say on her birth certificate now?” he asked her.

“Smith,” Jade answered him quickly.

“Write that,” he nodded, and she finally filled out the box she had been hopelessly staring at.

“Wanna know something funny, though?” Jade asked him a second later.

“About your mom being tortured into changing her last name?” he asked, and Jade pouted.

“Kinda. Her first choice was Morrissey, but my grandpa wouldn’t let her.”

“Like the singer?” Nacho asked her, losing his serious tone.

“Yep. So she went with Smith instead ’cause Morrissey’s band. She used to tell me when I was little, like three or four, that her first husband was Morrissey when we would listen to The Smiths together. I guess I ended up telling my dad because I thought she was serious. I was a little kid, right? And he tried to get mad at her over it. But, like, it was his fault she changed her name in the first place,” Jade laughed, but Nacho didn’t look amused. Instead, his eyebrows pressed together in a frown.

“Wait, so your dad bullied your mom so bad she changed her name?” Nacho questioned her, and Jade nodded.

“Yeah, he was one of the kids. He was a year ahead of her all through school, elementary to college,” Jade explained, and Nacho exhaled, his shoulders falling slightly.

“And she still married him?”

“Yeah. Funny, huh?”

“More like tragic,” Nacho told her, and Jade furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “I’d be more likely to shoot any of my school bullies than marry them. Can’t imagine,” Nacho explained.

“You were bullied in school?” Jade asked him.

“You weren’t?” he shot back at her.

“No, not really. I was friends with everyone,” she shook her head, and Nacho nodded.

“Figures. So, are you done with these yet?” Nacho pointed to the paperwork in front of Jade.

“I wish,” she sighed, looking the paperwork over. “What’s all this crap for anyway?”

“Taxes mostly,” Nacho shrugged, looking the papers over as well. “Miss dealing yet?”

Jade glanced at him before sighing, realizing that this was better than dealing for him. “No. I like this more despite wanting to rip my hair out. Seriously, what’s the point of knowing my mom’s maiden name?”

“Its confidential personal information, I guess,” Nacho shrugged at her again.

“Confidential?” Jade asked him. “What’s your mom’s maiden name?” she added as a joke.

“What, you want my social, birthday, and place of birth also?” Nacho asked her in the same joking tone she used.

“Knowing your birthday wouldn’t be that bad actually,” she smiled at him, but Nacho shook his head, pushing off from the counter.

“Let me know when you’re done with those,” he pointed to the paperwork before walking back towards the shop.

“Okay,” she sighed, turning around to face the papers on the counter, having expected Nacho to leave her be. Instead, she heard him from the entry.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?” she asked, turning again in her seat.

“Cigarroa,” he told her, and instantly Jade smiled. “And December ninth. ‘Cause I told you, I expect a present now,” he added, and Jade’s smile grew.

“Okay, cool,” she told him, watching him disappear into the shop. She turned to the paperwork again but instead took the pen to her wrist and wrote “12/09” in black ink.

~-----~

Jade had nearly finished a full workweek at the shop. She had Tuesdays off along with Nacho (she assumed this was because Nacho always had drops at El Michoacáno on Tuesdays, and it was easier for him not to worry about getting her to work on top of that). On Wednesday, Jorge had brought in a tres leches cake his wife had made in celebration of Jade’s new job at the shop. She hadn’t been expecting it and was surprised at how hospitable he and the rest of the guys were to her. Jade had ended up eating about half the cake herself, since it was the best dessert she had ever tasted hands down, and felt like she was going to die the rest of the day. After Wednesday, however, everything started into a slow decline of boredom.

It didn’t take Jade that long to realize that the upholstery shop didn’t need a receptionist. The system in place before she was hired, of a simple bell, did the job just as well as she did on most occasions. Mainly when the customers or vendors only spoke Spanish, and Jade had to call Papa or Nacho or one of the other guys up to the front anyway. And even that was a rare occurrence. It wasn’t like the shop was busy at all, and half the orders they got were for commercial clients that were called in instead of walk-ins.

Hell, maybe Jade should ask to take over the phone work as well. At least then she’d have people to talk to without having to bother the guys in the back while they worked. Or maybe she should start just flat out trying to learn Spanish? Would Nacho or Papa get mad at her wearing headphones for most the day while she listened to those Spanish teaching CDs?

Jade was contemplating this while staring out the shop’s front door, watching the odd car drive by here and there. They were in a commercial side of town, so there wasn’t much traffic if it wasn’t one of the rush hours or lunch. The clock behind the counter told her that it was only ten in the morning.

From the back, she could hear several of the sewing machines running at once while Latin music blasted over the sound. She couldn’t hear what song was actually playing, as if she knew much besides what had played at El Michoacáno when Tuco would give her dance lessons.

Jade shut her eyes at that thought, trying not to think about that night he had killed Sonny. She took a deep breath, trying to think of anything else; bunny rabbits, coffee creamer, the gross mole her geometry teacher had in sophomore year, literally anything. Thankfully, Jade was able to push thoughts of Tuco away. Unfortunately, her mind left the subject only after her mind had decided to wander back to Emilio’s birthday when she had shotgunned that toke of pot from Nacho.

Jade leaned forward, her forehead hitting the counter with a light thud! She managed not to groan at herself but stayed with her forehead resting against the counter for a moment until she realized exactly what had caused that thought. She could hear Selena’s song playing from the radio, the one that had played at Emilio’s party and went “O-oh baby!” Jade picked her head up and turned around on her stool, facing the back. She heard it then, the only English words in the song, “O-oh baby!”

Stricken with madness from her boredom, Jade realized she was smiling as she kicked off her Adidas. With only her socks on her feet, she ran to the back before sliding into view of the men at their sewing stations over the polished concrete floor. A couple of them didn’t even notice Jade as she started dancing around the workshop; Andre had his own headphones on, and Nacho was always absorbed in his work.

“What are you doing, miss Jade?” Clem laughed at her as she danced around the workbenches and a few stacks of dining chairs.

“I love this song!” she responded in laughter without stopping. She looked to Nacho then, who finally realized she was in the workshop.

“What are you doing? What happened to your shoes?” he asked her quickly.

“What? I can’t hear you over Selena!” Jade yelled her response though the only sewing machine still running was Andre’s.

“Jade, you have to wear shoes—”

“What?” Jade asked before pulling Sal out of his seat, trying to get him to dance with her. To her pleasant surprise, it worked.

“Jade!” Nacho stressed. She found it funny how big of a goody-two-shoes he was when it came to his father’s shop, especially when she’s seen him at drug deals, at a party, at a strip club, and beating the shit out of someone for her.

In response, she stopped briefly to yank her socks off before throwing them at Nacho’s workbench. The action prompted him to stand up, but he couldn’t get any more words in before she started trying to sing along with the song.

“Amor prohibido more moon— uh— los cabbage, porque some — uh-uh— social-dades!” Jade knew almost two percent of the lyrics, and that was it. Luckily, the guys only seemed amused by her butchering of their mother tongue.

“She’s alright, man!” Sal laughed at Nacho as he continued to dance with her, even going as far as grabbing onto Jade’s hands and spinning her around. Jade checked for Nacho’s reaction and saw him exhale, his shoulder’s falling slightly.

“Hey, why is Sal dancing with your girl?” Andre, finally catching up with the situation, pulled his headphones off before pointing at Sal and looking to Nacho.

“Because he only dances with strippers,” Jade answered before Nacho could if he had even planned on answering at all.

“Oh shit!” Andre laughed at Jade’s response, as did the rest of the guys, even Jorge, as he tried to sound appalled.

“Ignacio Varga!” he laughed while scolding Nacho.

“La cagaste, Nacho. ¿Cómo sabe ella eso?” Sal questioned him in Spanish.

“What?” Jade asked him as if he were speaking to her instead.

“Nada, mamacita— Uh-oh,” Sal quickly stepped away from her. Jade stopped moving and turned around, but didn’t have time to react before Nacho had swept her off her feet, literally.

Jade gave a tiny shriek of laughter as she felt Nacho’s arms around her back and under her knees, and in reflex, she threw her arms around his neck. He didn’t waste time in walking her back towards the front of the shop, where she had abandoned her stool. She looked over Nacho’s shoulder to see Sal drawing his thumb across his neck in jest.

“Mourn me!” she called out to him, still laughing.

“What are you doing?” Nacho asked her a few seconds later. Instead of letting her down, or setting her on her stool, he placed Jade on the countertop, before handing her socks back.

“I was dancing—” Jade started, but Nacho didn’t let her finish.

“Barefoot?” he asked her.

“No, I’m wearing invisible shoes,” Jade answered sarcastically before she started to put her socks back on. “Shit, I didn’t know you had such a phobia of feet.”

“You could have stepped on a nail or staple or—”

“But I didn’t,” Jade cut him off.

“You can’t go back there without shoes. You can’t walk around here at all without shoes on,” Nacho stressed. Having finished putting her socks back on, Jade placed her hands on the counter and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. I’m sorry, _dad_ ,” she told him, and watched Nacho actually recoil.

“Maybe if you acted like a responsible adult, I wouldn’t have to parent you,” Nacho shot back once he had recovered from her statement. Just to play into her childish behavior, she blew a raspberry at him. “Really?” he asked, placing his hands on his hips, one of his eyebrows raised at Jade.

“Really,” she pushed.

“I can’t believe we actually need a time out corner for you,” Nacho said, but couldn’t stop himself from laughing, and Jade joined him.

“Well, shit, time out would be more fun than this,” she admitted, “I’m so bored up here I’m dying.”

“Bring a book or something,” Nacho suggested, shrugging before he took a step forward, his hands on either side of her as he leaned towards the counter between her knees.

“Ew, who reads books?” Jade asked him, despite the sudden spike in her heart rate at the minimal contact.

“So sorry to have offended you,” Nacho scoffed, before sighing. “Do work then, organize the—”

“Already done,” Jade answered as he looked behind them at the different displays and binders of fabrics.

“Uh, wow. When?”

“Like my second day. Tidied up the fabric room also, by color. That was like day four and five,” Jade told him.

“Yeah, I saw that. My dad was impressed,” Nacho nodded.

“Mhm, Papa thanked me,” Jade smiled again.

He was quiet for a moment after, as if contemplating something before asking, “When I finish this last seat, do you want to take a long lunch with me? I mean, if you and your boyfriend Sal aren’t going anywhere.”

“What?” Jade questioned. The way Nacho had asked almost sounded like he wanted to take her on a lunch date. “I mean, yeah. Sure,” she nodded after a half-second, realizing he was probably just trying to keep her sane.

“We’ll head up to my apartment, and I’ll grab something for you to do, okay?” Nacho stepped away from her then, bending low to grab both of her shoes for her.

“What?” she asked again, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“I’ve got something that will keep you busy,” Nacho admitted, and though she knew he didn’t mean that, she couldn’t stop her mind from wondering how he could “keep her busy.”

“Okay, cool,” she took her shoes back from Nacho. “Uh, hurry up before I like, start dancing again,” she told Nacho as he started for the back of the upholstery shop.

“Oh, and,” Nacho turned around, stopping in the hallway to face her, “Los cabbage?” he asked, and Jade shrugged with a sheepish smile. “No. You’re learning the right lyrics to that song if you’re gonna sing it,” he told her before turning around again.

~-----~

Nacho’s method for keeping Jade busy was surprisingly counting and pricing out several large boxes of baseball cards. The first afternoon alone was trying to figure out Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. In the two days after, she figured it’d be easier to list every single card on the spreadsheet first so she didn’t keep having to quickly hide them from Papa when he’d come to the front of the store.

Apparently, Nacho and Domingo used to collect them as kids, and he had only recently rediscovered them. At least that was the explanation Nacho had given her. She didn’t know anything about baseball herself, so she didn’t question him. It was monotonous work, but it at least kept her busy. Jade was thankful for that, despite the literal thousands of cards. If the spreadsheet was right, including duplicates, there were at least fifteen thousand cards between the seven boxes.

It was the next Wednesday by the time she started pricing the cards using the Internet. Since she already had the list, Nacho had taken the cards back to his apartment. Jade only got about a hundred or so in when she was distracted by a customer walking in.

“Hi, how can—” Jade started to greet them before actually looking away from the computer screen. Her heart froze when she saw the very familiar face of Mike walk towards the front counter. His hands were in his windbreaker’s pockets.

“I should have expected to see you here,” he sighed in his signature tone of disapproval. Jade didn’t respond other than the wide-eyed stare she was giving the man. She was sure this wasn’t a coincidence. “Is Nacho here?” he prompted in her silence.

“Uh-huh,” Jade stiffly nodded, before realizing that he wanted her to go and fetch Nacho. She turned in her seat before hopping off the stool. Briskly, Jade walked towards the workshop. “Hey, Nacho!?” Jade called loudly over the music and sewing machines. The tone she used made him look up instantly as she appeared in the workshop. A few of the other guys looked up as well but didn’t seem as concerned as him.

“What?” he asked over the same noise before standing up and walking over to her from his work station. “What happened?”

“Uh, Mike?” she started, “He’s here for you.” Maybe he had legit business with Nacho, and he hadn’t just shown up out of the blue. Perhaps Nacho had forgotten to tell her that he was stopping by today. How his face fell proved that thought wrong.

“Shit,” she heard him mutter as he looked down the short hallway. Jade turned around, looking as well, and felt her heart once again freeze when she saw Papa now speaking with Mike.

“Oh fuck,” Jade quickly looked back to Nacho.

“Distract my dad,” he told her quickly before making his way towards the counter, but Jade had no clue how to do that.

“Nacho, mijo,” Papa waved him over as he approached, a ring of fabric samples already in his hand. By now, Mike was waiting at the door. Maybe he was just a customer, and it was a coincidence? Still, Jade doubted it, watching the three men exit through the front door. She moved back to the front counter then, looking out the windows where she could see them standing around a late eighties, faded black Chrysler something.

Jade thought hard for a moment, nervously tapping her fingers on the front counter before she had an idea. Quickly, Jade spun around and ran into Papa’s office. She crash-landed into Papa’s seat before grabbing the phone and pressing the redial button. Jade wasn’t sure who the last person Papa had on the phone was but hoped that this stunt would work. Jade waited, her knee bouncing nervously until she heard someone pick up. Immediately, Jade pressed the “call hold” button on the phone and hung the receiver up, relieved when she heard it start ringing. Jade rushed out of the office then, leaving the door open as she made her way to the garage door instead of the front of the shop since it was closer.

“Papa!” she called before she was even out the door, “Papa, the phone- uh, el telefono, uh—uh— Nacho, the telephone is ringing?” she asked. He had told her at least twice before but could never remember the phrase. “Serenata?” she asked before watching Nacho tell his father himself.

“I’m sorry, senor. My son, he will help you. Okay?” Papa told Mike, handing the ring of fabric samples over to Nacho before speaking to him in Spanish quickly. Jade looked back towards the office, but couldn’t hear the phone ringing through the sound of the sewing machines running. She could only hope whoever she had called was still on hold.

“Thank you, Jade,” Papa smiled at her as he passed.

“De nada, Papa,” she smiled back at him, watching as he walked towards the office. She turned then, looking out towards Nacho and Mike, who were now alone with each other. Nacho’s complete shift from a quiet, helpful son into a full-blown intimidating cartel member right before her eyes was unsettling, but Mike seemed unfazed. Jade couldn’t hear their conversation, but could only figure they were discussing “business.” Jade glanced back towards the office and was thankful that Papa hadn’t come back out yet. When she turned back around, Nacho had started for the garage opening where she was, but something Mike said stopped him, causing him to spin around.

“Everything alright, miss Jade?” she heard Clem ask over Jorge and Sal’s machines.

“Everything’s good,” she smiled brightly at him, wondering if she should go back to her stool at the front counter.

Clem nodded at her before getting back to work. She glanced back out at Nacho and Mike before doing the same, forcing herself back to the front counter.

She could still see Mike and Nacho out the windows, talking at Mike’s car. Jade felt her nerves growing the longer they were out there. About five minutes later, Mike finally got into his car and drove away, with Nacho watching. After his car was out of sight, Jade saw Nacho’s shoulders fall from where he had them squared. He rubbed at his face before finally turning and making for the entrance to the upholstery shop.

Jade held her tongue, despite wanting to blurt out a hundred questions about what was going on and why Mike had shown up. Instead, she waited for Nacho to walk up to the front counter, setting the fabric samples down between them.

“El telefono esta sonando,” he started, correcting Jade’s broken Spanish from before with a sigh. “Serenata means serenade.”

He was avoiding something, Jade could tell. “What’s up with Mike?” she prompted, not caring about her bad Spanish.

“I need a favor,” he started, speaking slowly as he would when he was trying to calm Tuco. That alone made Jade feel sick.

“What favor?” she asked, trying not to show how nervous she was. Nacho could probably tell anyway.

“Do you remember those baseball cards?”

~-----~

Jade hadn’t said a word to him the whole drive out to the abandoned power plant; she wouldn’t even look over at him. Carlos and Joel in the back were quiet as well, and Jade wasn’t sure if how pissed off she felt was permeating the atmosphere of the van, or if they weren’t feeling talkative.

Nacho had explained to her the day previous that the massive collection of baseball cards she had been slaving over for nearly a week actually weren’t his and Domingo’s. They were cards he had stolen from Pryce after breaking into his house, looking for more pills and cash. Apparently, this Pryce guy flipped out and called the cops, and now they were poking their noses into this mess. On top of that, Mike had shown up at the upholstery shop to threaten Nacho with Tuco.

Pissed off might have been an understatement for how Jade felt, but she figured it was at least close enough.

When Nacho finally pulled up to the power plant, Jade could see both Mike and Pryce waiting, both their vehicles parked behind them.

“Holy shit, look at that thing,” Joel said from behind Jade’s seat, and she didn’t even have to question him to know he was talking about the flashy Hummer.

“It’s whack, huh?” Carlos laughed, and Jade wondered when he had seen it before. Maybe they had stalked Pryce like they had stalked her, Corey, and Joel.

Nacho slowed his van to a smooth stop a few yards in front of the two men, before cutting the engine. Everyone inside remained still, waiting for Nacho’s lead, but instead, he glanced over to Jade. Since getting into his van that morning, she looked over to him with a deep-set frown for the first time.

“God, you’re such an asshole,” she rolled her eyes after only a second, not giving him a chance to say anything. Jade took point, unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of the van first.

“Hey, guys!” she slammed the van door before walking up to Mike and Pryce, “Look, I am so, so, sorry. I had no idea what that—” Jade turned around, hearing the van door’s opening and closing, and shouted, “asshole!” as Nacho stepped out himself, “—was doing. He’s too big of a—dick head!” she repeated her actions, “—to say sorry himself.”

“Uh,” Pryce started, glancing nervously in Nacho’s direction. Next to him, Mike sighed, seemingly already over the whole situation.

“So I just wanted to apologize for him, sincerely. I am so sorry about this mess,” Jade continued with both of her hands over her heart before Pryce or Mike could say anything more.

“Uh,” Pryce started again. “Th-thanks,” he nodded before shuffling forward slightly, his arm extending towards her with his Hummer keys.

Jade dropped her hands and rose an eyebrow at him, unsure what he was doing before she saw Nacho’s hand reach for them instead. She looked to her left, finding him next to her now.

“She’s a little tricky around the corners, so,” Pryce told Nacho, “And you gotta go with the premium gas. I know it seems like a scam, but it makes a huge difference.” Jade, through the context, realized that Pryce must be trading Nacho the Hummer for the baseball cards. “And I would get her washed at least once a week. And spring for that hand wax. You’re gonna want that extra layer of protection for the clear coat.” He looked behind himself at his Hummer. “She deserves the best,” he added proudly.

“I’ll make sure the boys at the chop shop are real gentle with her,” Nacho nodded beside Jade, and she quickly turned to him, staring daggers. He didn’t have to say that.

“Seriously?” she questioned, but Nacho ignored her.

“Wait, why?” Pryce glanced at Mike quickly. “No.”

“You think I’d be caught dead driving that thing? Looks like a school bus for six-year-old pimps.”

Before she could even stop herself, she had started laughing before slapping a hand over her mouth and spinning around to hide her expression from Pryce. Despite how angry she was with him, that was the best insult she had heard from Nacho yet.

“Bless you,” Joel told Jade, trying to help her cover her laughter for a sneeze, though he looked to be struggling not to burst into laughter himself.

“Alright, shall we move this along?” Mike asked impatiently as Jade turned back around, once again composed.

Nacho nodded to Carlos, and he walked forward, Joel following Carlos’ lead. They walked the boxes of baseball cards to the back of Mike’s car. Pryce was the last one to follow as Joel and Carlos set the cards in the trunk. Jade looked back to Nacho, and they shared their first non-hostile glance at each other all morning.

It took another couple minutes with Pryce checking the boxes for individual cards until he was satisfied. Mike closed his trunk then, before walking back over to Nacho and Jade, leading the others.

“And now the other item,” he told Nacho. She looked back to him and saw him hold out his left hand, handing over a folded over manilla envelope. They both nodded before Mike walked away, ending the deal silently. Jade had turned around, expecting to get back into Nacho’s van, but instead, she noticed him motioning Pryce over.

“Now, our business is concluded,” he stated quietly as Pryce nervously leaned in, making sure to look the man in the eyes. His only response was a nod of his own. Jade knew that Nacho had only said it for her, though. It wasn’t even about ripping off the baseball cards. That statement meant no more Oxy buying, not from Pryce or anyone. Once Joel and that Arlo guy sold the last of what Nacho had, it was over.

Nacho didn’t look at her again; instead, he turned around and tossed the hummer keys to Carlos.

“Comin’ with us? That thing looks fun,” Joel asked Jade as Pryce walked to Mike’s car.

“I, um...” Jade looked back to Nacho, who was getting into his van. “I gotta get to work, we’re late,” Jade told him, making her way back to the passenger seat. It wasn’t a lie, they were both late for work, but she suddenly wanted to talk to Nacho again after being pissed off at him for almost a full day.

“Cool, later Jade,” Joel nodded before getting into the Hummer with Carlos.

“Later, guys,” she waved at Carlos and Joel before getting into Nacho’s van. He had his phone in his hands but flipped it closed when Jade buckled in, focusing instead on her.

“You didn’t want a ride in that thing?” Nacho asked, shoving his phone in his pants pocket. After, he started up his vehicle. He seemed honestly surprised that Jade was sitting next to him as he started to drive away.

“What, and go to pimp school instead of work?” Jade smiled at him, remembering that comeback. “Nah.”

“I told my dad we’d both be out for the day,” Nacho admitted, and Jade lost her smile to a confused frown.

“Huh? Why?” she asked.

Nacho glanced at her before turning onto the two-lane highway. “Thought it’d help stop you from calling me an asshole and dickhead,” he tried, and Jade smiled again.

“Maybe if you told me beforehand,” she told him, looking to he sunbleached road ahead.

“My bad,” she could hear the smile in his voice and fought herself not to get a glance at it. “Should I drop you off at home or...?”

“Or what?” Jade asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

“Apology breakfast? Lunch? It’s after ten.”

“Breakfast ends at ten?” Jade asked him, losing the fight with herself not to look at Nacho when his phone started ringing.

“Technically, I think it does,” he told her, utterly ignoring his phone.

“Bullshit. Whatever, fine. Apology brunch, then… Are you gonna answer that?”

“No. And I’m not calling it that,” Nacho shook his head, completely dismissing her question as his phone quit ringing.

“Okay…” Jade, thought it was a strange thing to do, but decided to drop him ignoring his phone as well. “If you call it apology brunch, then I’ll one hundred percent forgive you,” she smiled over at him.

“Seriously?” Nacho rose an eyebrow at her. “Fine. Apology brunch,” he said as he turned back to the road.

“Okay. Apology accepted. Sorry, by the way, for calling you an asshole and dickhead,” Jade told Nacho.

“Really? It’s that simple?” he asked her, looking stunned.

“Am I supposed to buy you an apology brunch too?”

“No, just... that was way too easy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that mad before. Thought it’d take more to apologize to you.”

“Eh,” Jade shrugged. “Now I know for next time that I can get more than a day off and free food.”

“Well, I wouldn’t push it that far,” she saw Nacho smirk. “What makes you think there’s a ‘next time’?”

“You look like a repeat offender,” she told him teasingly and earned a chuckle from Nacho.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “¿Es esta tu amante?” — Is this your sweetheart? (boyfriend didn't like this translation but literally refused to give me another word 😑)
> 
> “¿Su amante?” — His sweetheart?
> 
> “Buenos dias mamacita.” — Good morning mamacita.
> 
> “Deja de ser un idiota.” — Stop being an idiot.
> 
> Imbéciles — Fools
> 
> “Una guera. Bien por tu.” — A blonde. Good for you.
> 
> “¿Porqué estás mintiendo?” — Why are you lying?
> 
> “Estos idiotas comenzaron a coquetear con nuestra nueva recepcionista.” — These idiots just started flirting with our new receptionist.
> 
> “¿Necesitamos una recepcionista?” — We need a receptionist?
> 
> “¿Ella habla español?” — Does she speak Spanish?
> 
> “Duermo tarde español. ¿Una hora más? No se rasque mi coche.” — I sleep late Spanish. One more hour? Don't scratch my car (because Jeff from Community❤).
> 
> “Amor prohibido more moon— uh— los cabbage, porque some — uh-uh— social-dades!” — Jade butchering the song lyrics to Amor Prohibido by Selena. The actual lyrics are “Amor prohibido murmuran por las calles, porque somos de distintas sociedades” which roughtly translates to: Forbidden love they whisper on the streets, because we are from different societies.
> 
> “La cagaste, Nacho. ¿Cómo sabe ella eso?” — You fucked up, Nacho. How’s she know that?
> 
> “De nada.” — You’re welcome.
> 
> Apparently weeks go by a lot faster than I remembered 😀 I could get used to this though. I'm still working on getting July's chapters finished, but it seems very doable at this point. I'm still working at home, so hopefully, I can get a lot more writing in for the summer. We've got some exciting things that will start unfolding starting next chapter 😉
> 
> Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone so much for reading and leaving kudos and comments on the last chapter. Even though it's only been a week I still got a ton of hits and a couple more kudos/bookmarks. I also want to thank my boyfriend for beta reading and helping with the Spanish, as usual.


	21. New Person, Same Old Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade finds out who has been calling Nacho. At a breaking point, Nacho finally takes the plunge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Tame Impala's song "New Person, Same Old Mistakes."
> 
> This chapter is about 12 and a half novel pages. Grammarly estimates it will take about 23 and a half minutes to read. This is the shortest chapter ever. I'm so sorry, guys. I've written single scenes longer than this chapter, but hopefully, the content will make up for it?
> 
> As with the previous chapter, this update takes place during/after the episode "Cobbler" in season two of Better Call Saul. Potential spoilers are ahead. There are no other warnings really except for some generally angry characters 😉.
> 
> There is also a literal wall of Spanish dialogue used in the chapter, but rest assured that it is all translated in the notes afterward, as usual.
> 
> *Edit 06/22: Writing in my phone at 1:30am, sorry for mistakes or format issues. I Just found out that Papa Mando passed away Friday, 06/19. Michael wrote a beautiful post on Instagram about how his dad died in his arms and I just... I can’t imagine that. My Heart and my brain are completely shattered, it’s utterly incomprehensible. Send him and his brothers your love and thoughts and prayers please 🙏🏻❤️*

Nacho’s phone had started ringing again while they sat in a little diner not far from the upholstery shop. She’d tag along with some of the guys, mainly Sal or Andre, to order take out for lunch and help carry boxes of food back to the shop. Loyola’s, it was called, and they made the best bacon and egg sandwiches Jade had come to find out.

In the middle of her sandwich, Jade looked up across the table to see Nacho reaching into his pocket. Instead of answering, he simply turned his phone off. Rational questions and thoughts about what Nacho was doing were suddenly drowned out by an irrational panic. Her mind immediately went to Dylan, although she understood it made no sense. Nacho had reassured her that he was in jail and that he wouldn’t ever bother her again, plus why would he be calling Nacho? It made absolutely no sense, but Jade still had to put her sandwich down, immediately feeling ill.

“You okay?” Nacho had asked her. She nodded, reaching for her soda as if she had put her sandwich down to take a drink.

Her panic thankfully receded in only a couple minutes, and she was back to herself after that. Not much else happened that day. After “apology brunch,” Nacho dropped Jade off at her house. Since it was barely noon on a weekday, she had the house to herself and made the most of it by passing out on the living room couch to The Price is Right.

The next Monday, when Nacho picked Jade up for work, she had completely forgotten about the phone calls and his odd behavior. As usual, he had a cup of coffee waiting for her, and the drive to the shop was mostly silent beside their brief “good mornings” to each other.

It wasn’t until Nacho had pulled into the shop and parked in his usual spot in the back when Jade was reminded of the odd, unanswered phone calls. She was testing her coffee after Nacho had gotten out of the driver seat and watched him walk around the van to help her out when he suddenly stopped. Keeping her eyes on him, she watched him pull his phone out of his Dickies, before running a hand down his face and shoving it back into his pocket. The cell phone was still ringing when he opened the passenger door for her and offered to help her out.

Instead of taking his hand and hopping out of the van like usual, Jade remained seated and stared at him. He moved his hand closer to her while raising his eyebrow. “Are you gonna answer that?” she asked him instead.

“No,” he was short in his response while still waiting to help her out of the van.

“Who’s blowing you up all the sudden?” Jade finally obliged, stepping out of the van with his help. He closed the door behind her before briskly walking towards the garage door.

Jade didn’t think she’d get an answer from him until a moment later when he said, “No one.”

“No one? Well, ‘no one’ sure wants to talk to you,” Jade tried a different, more humorous approach. She only earned a disapproving frown from Nacho as he lifted the garage door for them to step under.

Their conversation was briefly halted when the guys greeted them with the usual “hola” and “Buenos dias” greetings. Nacho tried hiding his sour mood from them with a tight smile and curt nods as he responded before heading quickly to the front of the store. Jade followed him, only pausing to set her coffee down on the front counter before walking with him to the office.

“Is someone bugging you?” she pressed, hearing Nacho sigh as he unlocked the office door and stepped inside.

“No,” he said again, flipping on the lights before raising an eyebrow at her as Jade followed him inside.

“Is it one of the guys? Something about Pryce—?” she asked him, taking a seat in front of the desk. Nacho sat on the other side, working on turning the old computer and monitor on.

“No, Jade,” he looked up to her when he said her name like a warning. “It’s nothing. Drop it, okay?”

She honestly tried. She wanted to just nod and get up and leave the office, but she couldn’t. “It’s just that—”

“Ay, ¿qué chingado? Dejalo ir,” he sighed, rubbing at his face.

“—it’s giving me weird Dylan vibes, and, I dunno, it’s kind of freaking me out,” Jade kept going. She’d learned more and more curse words from the guys while working at the shop (surprisingly more than actual useful Spanish). Jade could tell she was really pressing her luck with Nacho at that moment. She had brought up Dylan in hopes of him cooling off and understanding why she was so suddenly annoying.

“Dylan?” Nacho asked as his hands fell away from his face. “Dylan’s in—”

“He’s in jail, I know,” she cut Nacho off quickly. “I know it’s not Dylan calling you, it’s just… I’m getting weird stalker vibes, okay?”

“Jade,” he leaned forward, “It’s nothing, okay? I promise you. This has nothing to do with you, or Dylan, or Pryce, or Tuco, or anyone that would concern you. Okay?” he explained softly and slowly as if trying to express that he understood and wasn’t upset at her.

Jade took a deep breath before finally relenting. “Fine,” she nodded before quickly standing up, “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Do you want the door closed?” she asked, already standing outside the office, with her hand on the door handle. It took a second before Nacho nodded, and Jade shut the door on him before walking to her stool at the front counter. She sat there, drinking her coffee while zoning out to the sound of sewing machines and Tejano music.

The shop was never particularly busy on Mondays, or any day, for that matter. Jade kept herself preoccupied with double-checking the catalog prices for a particular company’s fabrics against their website. She had taken this up when she noticed a measly two dollar discrepancy in several yards of vinyl Papa had ordered. Since the catalog books were all at least a few years old, she was finding a few more discrepancies, however small, and marking the pages with Post-it notes.

When the phone for the shop started ringing, Jade was still half zoned out from her monotonous work as she answered. Standing from her stool, she walked to the phone on the wall and quickly answered, “Thanks for calling A-Z Fine Upholstery. This is Jade, what can I help you with?”

“Uh,” a woman’s voice came through the other end, sounding taken aback by Jade’s voice. Briefly, she wondered if this woman had dialed the wrong number by mistake. “Is Nacho there?” she asked after a moment.

Jade’s blue eyes quickly went to the office, but the lights were off. “He is, but he’s busy right now,” Jade answered, as she slipped off her stool and walked to the fabric area to see if she could see Nacho at his workbench. The phone’s cord stretched out behind her. “Was he working on a project for you?”

“No, I just— I need to speak with him, please,” the woman started again, sounding less caught off guard and more impatient.

“I can take a message and have him call you back as soon as possible?” Jade suggested. Though she still sounded professional, she had rolled her eyes, returning to where she was standing before in front of the phone.

On the other end of the line, Jade heard the woman sigh. “Fine, whatever. Tell him Carmen has been calling and to answer his damn phone.” Jade blinked, hearing a click before she was met with a dial tone. Jade looked at the receiver for a second before snorting and hanging up herself.

“Bitch,” she sighed before returning to her stool, already half deciding not to let Nacho know. If she had been the one calling, no wonder he had been ignoring her. Jade sat for a moment, figuring she should get back to the catalog before a thought crossed her mind that she should at least tell Nacho. It was her job and “but she was a bitch!” wasn’t a good reason not to do it.

Jade pulled her Post-it note pad closer to her, writing, “‘I’ve been calling, answer your damn phone’ — Carmen” on the yellow paper. Jade peeled it off the pad then, before standing back up and walking to the workshop.

Nacho noticed her approaching his workbench, but she neither said anything nor smiled like she usually would. Instead, she stuck the Post-it on the table for him before turning around and walking away again. He didn’t call her back to his workbench, so she went back to her stool at the front counter, opening the catalog with a sigh.

~-----~

It was another typical slow day at the shop, and Jade had found herself secretly playing her Game Boy behind the counter. Papa had left only half an hour ago, but Jade knew she’d be stuck at the shop another couple of hours. Nacho was helping Jorge catch up on reupholstering some bench seats for a restaurant, and that past week they had been leaving after six. Jade figured this week would be much the same, at least Monday was.

Besides when Papa left, nobody, not even one of the guys, had come into the front lobby for the past couple hours. Jade was so engrossed in her Pokémon game that she barely heard the front door’s bell when it opened.

She glanced up, realizing that someone was walking into the lobby and quickly switched her Game Boy off. She stowed it in the shelves below the front counter. “Hi,” she immediately put on a bright, toothy smile, “How can I help you?”

The woman who had walked in didn’t look like the typical customers the shop would get. She was wearing black patent leather stiletto heels with a red sole, a tight cream-colored lace dress, a fancy looking blazer jacket, and a large purse that matched the color of her dress. She had her lips sharply lined in dark red, her black hair done up and curled like it was her wedding day, and her eyebrows precisely tweezed and evenly filled in. Her nails were long and looked professionally done, painted a glossy black that matched her heels. She was wearing large hoop earrings, and a diamond-encrusted “C” charm on a small gold chain, which looked to be in danger of being eaten by the woman’s cleavage.

She stared at Jade as if she were confused and slightly disgusted before Jade wondered if she possibly didn’t speak English. “Um, necesitas a, um, hable Español?” Jade butchered the phrase Nacho had taught her while jabbing her thumb toward the back where the guys were working.

The woman stared at Jade for another moment before walking around the counter and enter the shop area herself. “Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Jade jumped off her stool to block her path, wondering if her butchered Spanish somehow translated to “they speak Spanish back there” or something. “If you need someone who speaks Spanish, I can grab them—”

“When were you hired? What do you even do here?” the woman shot back at Jade quickly, and Jade physically took a step backward, shocked at being addressed so directly and in English. Should she know who the woman was? Papa and Nacho had never mentioned her, neither had the other guys. Jade figured she could always be someone’s girlfriend. She looked like Andre’s type, maybe.

“I, uh,” Jade faltered, fumbling with her thoughts.

“Move,” the woman didn’t give Jade any time to organize her thoughts into something coherent before she was literally pushed aside.

“Hey, wait!” Jade, suddenly realizing what had just happened, angrily yelled after the woman. She stomped after her, but the slap of her sneakers and the click of the woman’s heels on the concrete floor was drowned out by the loud sound of industrial sewing machines. “You aren’t allowed back here, lady!”

She didn’t even look back at Jade, but she could tell that the woman was annoyed with her. Jade didn’t care. If she was important or someone’s girlfriend, she could have just said, “Hey, I need to speak to my boyfriend” or, “Hey, I sell fabrics to Papa” or something.

When Jade realized she wasn’t getting the desired response, she stopped, turned towards Nacho’s work station, and yelled over the machines.

“Nacho!”

“Nacho!”

Jade’s and the new woman’s eyes immediately snapped to each other, and both had an expression of confusion and surprise. Each of them was startled by the same exact tone and volume they had used at the same exact time to call for the same exact man.

Around them, the shop fell silent as the sewing machines came to a halt, filling the air with a tense, palpable silence.

“Uh, smoke break,” Clem stated quickly before jumping off his chair and making for the half-open garage door.

“Smoke break,” Jorge agreed, and Andre, as well as Sal, nodded before they followed Clem outside. Jade glanced around at them, knowing for a fact that two of the four didn’t smoke before she looked to Papa’s empty workstation and then to Nacho at his own. He had the palms of his hands pressed into his eye sockets, resting his elbows on top of the pleather fabric he was working with.

“What the hell is this?” the new woman asked, breaking the silence first, and Jade looked back to her, unable to shake her stupor as fast as she apparently had.

“You need to leave,” Nacho sighed before bringing his hands away from his face. He was looking at the mystery woman, so Jade stood her ground, despite Clem trying to wave her out of the half-open garage door.

“We need to talk. If you answered your phone—”

“If I wanted to talk to you, I would have answered my phone,” Nacho cut her off quickly before standing from his stool and taking a few steps around his workbench and towards them both.

Jade looked back at the woman, remembering how Nacho had suddenly been avoiding his phone. This was who was blowing him up the other day? Realizing this must be Carmen, Jade looked over her again. An uneasy void started to form in her stomach, it nearly made her feel nauseous.

“I don’t care what you want,” she pointed at Nacho with one of her manicured fingers before pointing back at herself, “I need to talk to you.”

“Aquí no,” Nacho switched his language, and Jade looked back to him, taking in how stiff he was. He was speaking calmly, but his eyes looked furious.

“Esta es la única forma de obtener una respuesta tuya, Nacho. Alberto necesita tu ayuda—” the woman started, Spanish quickly flowing from her mouth. Jade felt that void growing consuming nearly everything inside her. Her limbs began to go weak, and her palms went clammy. She had an idea who this woman was and where this conversation was heading, but her brain wouldn’t let her accept that fact. This woman was too pretty, way too pretty.

“Dije que no aquí”, Nacho cut her off again. “No hagas esto frente a ella. Llamaré a Alberto cuando esté fuera del trabajo si necesita mi ayuda.”

Jade kept hearing Alberto’s name and thought back to Emilio’s party, wondering if the real “weed guy” had anything to do with this.

“Miss Jade?” Clem called to her quietly, as if he were afraid Nacho or this woman would snap at him. Instead of leaving the workshop, she stayed dumbly rooted to her spot.

“¿En frente de ella? ¿Quién chingado es ella, Nacho?” the woman was pointing at Jade now.

“Ella es mi novia.”

Jade’s eyes went wide, and she looked from Nacho to the woman, taking a step backward. She knew that word, she knew that phrase. She’d known it since Morena had practically taught her what “novia” meant. Nacho had just told this angry, expensive looking woman that Jade was his girlfriend.

Suddenly the quick back and forth between the woman and Nacho came to a stop, and she looked back at Jade, mouth half falling open and her eyes looking Jade over head to toe, twice. The void in Jade had grown so large she felt her eyes sting, and her jaw ache, and she suddenly realized she was trying not to cry.

“¿Tu— Tu _novia_?!” the woman shouted in Spanish as she looked back to Nacho.

“Jade!” she looked back to the garage door to see Sal waving her out now as well, and finally, Jade moved, rushing to join the rest of the guys.

“Necesitas irte,” Nacho responded as calmly as possible with a clenched jaw. The woman showed no such restraint and had raised her own voice to the point of screaming at Nacho. Jade didn’t bother to look back as she ducked under the garage door where Clem and Sal were waiting for her. On top of the all-consuming void growing inside her, she also felt a sudden panic. Jade felt as if a predator had her in their sights.

“¿¡ _Ella_ es tu novia!? ¿¡Esa _niña_!? ¿Cuándo conseguiste una novia? ¿Por qué no me lo dijiste? ¿Cuándo comenzó a trabajar aquí? ¿Dónde la encontraste? ¡¿Es esa la única forma en que puedes encontrar a alguien para lidiar con tu mierda, conseguir a alguien demasiado joven y estúpido para enamorarse de ti?!” the woman fired off in a rapid succession that Jade nearly wondered if any of the words were coherent in Spanish or if she was screaming nonsense at Nacho. Clem shut the garage door fully as Jade backed up a few steps, staring at it before looking at him, and then Sal, and the rest of the guys. They all had all fled seeing this woman, Jade realized. She must have done this to Nacho before. Enough at least for them to know when to flee.

Despite the garage door being closed, she could hear Nacho finally snap.

“Carmen, you need to leave!” Nacho yelled at the woman in English now. 

“You okay, Jade?” Andre asked, obviously noticing her shaking like she was suddenly thrust into a snowstorm. She just stood there, dumbfounded and feeling ill.

“Miss Jade?” Clem prompted, and she finally snapped out of it.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “No— yeah, I’m good.” She avoided eye contact with all of them as she sat next to Sal, who silently offered her his cigarette pack. Despite hating tobacco, she nodded but made no move to take the pack from him. Instead, Sal pulled a cigarette out and lit it up for her before handing it over instead.

Jade accepted it silently before bringing the filter to her lips and sucking in deeply as if it were a blunt. She was hoping that somehow this cig would be magic and get rid of the void she felt; instead, the smoke only burned in her lungs and gave her the urge to cough.

Inside, with the absence of any other kind of noise, she could still hear Carmen and Nacho yelling. She couldn’t tell, but it sounded like they were arguing about Jade now instead of whatever it was before. “This happen often?” Jade chanced. Her voice sounded raspy since she refused to cough.

“Used to,” Andre answered her honestly before getting dirty looks from the rest of the guys. “What? She’d come in here screaming every other week.”

The five of them heard something hit the metal roll-up door, and Jade figured something had been thrown. Nacho and Carmen had switched back to Spanish, so she wasn’t sure who was throwing things but had a good guess that Carmen was. The small group was silently listening for another minute before the argument moved out of the shop, through the front lobby, and into the small front parking lot. The two kept arguing all the way to Carmen’s BMW, and the slamming of her car door punctuated the end of their argument.

From where she was with the other guys, they could easily see Nacho in the parking lot while Carmen drove away. Jade decided to keep her eyes on a spot just a few feet in front of her while she continued to puff on her cigarette.

“Guess our break’s over,” Clem said, dropping his cigarette onto the ground and smothering it with his boot. Next to her, Sal stood up and did the same. Before Jade could mimic them, she heard her name called.

“Jade?” it was Nacho, and without looking up, she figured he had walked around the fence and made his way over.

“Yeah,” she asked, clearing her throat. Jade stayed seated and kept her eyes away from him while the rest of the guys filed back into the shop.

He was silent for a moment, so Jade forced herself to take another drag of tobacco. She was almost halfway through her cigarette now. “Since when do you smoke?” he asked her, and for a fleeting moment, she thought it was odd how normal he sounded after hearing him scream at some random woman for five minutes straight.

“Since right now,” she answered. The slight rasp she had from the cigarette was the only variation in her otherwise monotone voice. More silence followed, and Jade finally brought her eyes up to Nacho’s face. She caught him as he sighed. A frown was etched into his lips and slightly wrinkled his forehead. She thought there was a hint of disappointment present as well. Not wanting to finish the cigarette off, she handed it over to Nacho. It was making her feel sick and shaky anyway.

Jade figured he’d toss it to the ground and snuff it out like Clem and Sal had, Jade was surprised to see him bring it up to his own lips and inhale.

“Since when do you smoke?” she repeated his question. She had to drop her eyes back to the ground to avoid thinking about Emilio’s birthday when he had let her shotgun that hit he took from an actual joint. That was as intimate as they’d ever be and it hurt; it was a throbbing pain left in the center of the void that had filled her and refused to leave.

“Here and there,” Nacho answered her, words mixing with smoke before he took Sal’s old seat next to her. “Uh, that was my ex,” he explained as if Jade didn’t already have that idea.

“Oh,” was her only response.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you?” Jade countered before she realized that she sounded upset. Was she upset? Nacho gave her a look like he was trying to figure out that same thing. “I’m fine,” she added, sputtering while breaking eye contact again to stare at the ground.

Nacho was silent next to her, and Jade wasn’t sure if he was waiting for her to tell him the truth or if he’d just accept her typical “I’m fine” response. He took another drag before saying anything more. “I’m sorry,” he told her. Jade only glanced at his shoes instead of the ground in front of her.

“You shoulda, like…” Jade sighed, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as she tried to act like everything was fine and that she wasn’t slowly dying from the inside out. “I think she was mad about me? Like, she flipped out when you said I was your girlfriend.” Jade forced herself to meet Nacho’s eyes, even for a moment. “You should have said I was just your coworker or something.”

“Why would I say that?” he asked her, and Jade’s heart stopped, finally being consumed by that void in her.

“What?” she asked, her voice losing volume unintentionally.

“Why would I tell her you aren’t—”

“Because I’m not,” she stood up quickly, crossing her arms over her chest. She was shaking again, her whole body was quaking, making her feel even more nauseous than the cigarette had. “I mean, right? What?” Jade asked him, her mind reeling. That’s not what he meant, was it? Why would he want his ex to think he was dating Jade? Especially when Jade obviously had nothing on Carmen.

Nacho had remained in his seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and the cigarette burning away in his right hand. He had his eyebrow raised at her but didn’t say anything. Carmen was freaking gorgeous. She had nothing on Carmen. Right? “I—um,” Jade took a step back towards the half-open garage door. “I think I might have to throw up?” she said before quickly turning around and ducking under the door, back into the shop.

~-----~

She was right about being stuck at the shop after closing. The guys had slowly begun trickling out after Carmen had left. The last to leave was Jorge. His wife had picked him up about half an hour before six, and now Jade was left alone in the front, listening to Nacho’s sewing machine drone on and on, leaving her with her thoughts of the day’s events.

She felt better about an hour after the half cigarette she smoked. The void had also left her, and Jade found that she was filled with questions now. Why did Nacho’s ex want to talk with him? Why didn’t he want to talk to her? She was gorgeous! Why had Al been mentioned? Why did Nacho tell his ex that Jade was his new girlfriend? Why hadn’t she let Nacho finish that sentence? “Why would I tell her you aren’t” what? Was he going to finish his sentence with “my girlfriend?” Was she dating him, just because he kept telling everyone to “protect” her form Tuco? Telling Carmen definitely wasn’t protecting her from Tuco.

Jade groaned, laying her head down on the front counter, wishing she could just stop thinking. If Nacho would stop running that stupid machine, he could take her home, and then maybe she could zone out and stop thinking.

Suddenly, Jade realized it was silent in the shop. She had no idea how long, and she lifted her head from the counter before hearing Nacho’s voice.

“Hey, Jade?” he called, and she took a deep breath.

“What?” she called back. If Nacho was ready to leave, he would have come and got her, so she wasn’t sure why he was calling for her from the workshop.

“I need your help real quick.”

“Help with what?” Jade asked herself before slipping off her stool and walking to the workshop. Maybe, she thought then; perhaps she should talk about Carmen with Nacho like they had talked about her and Corey a while back?

“Yeah?” she asked as she came out of the hallway, and immediately saw what he needed help with. He was trying to get the pleather fabric over the wooden frame for one of the diner seats.

“Get that other side, will you?” he asked, and Jade quickly obliged, walking over to the seat to help yank the cushioned cover on over the frame.

It took them a minute, but they were able to get the cover on. After, she helped Nacho flip the seat over so he could staple it down.

“Hold that for a sec. Is it too heavy?” he checked with her.

“No, its good,” Jade tried to keep the strain out of her voice despite feeling her arms burn as she held the piece of furniture up. Nacho returned quickly with a staple gun and helped her hold the seat upside down as he stapled the fabric in place.

Jade looked from the stables to his face, observing his focus with a slight fascination before deciding to say “fuck it” and ask about Carmen.

“So, uh,” Jade started, clearing her throat as he finished stapling. He helped her set the seat down on it’s back before turning it upright himself, so Jade took a step back. “What’d Carmen want?”

He sighed before looking over at her with a frown. In response, Jade crossed her arms, waiting for his answer.

“I dunno,” was all he gave before turning away from her to put the staple gun back.

“She obviously needed to talk to you about something,” Jade spoke to his back. She saw his sigh before he responded.

“Would you believe me if I said we didn’t get that far?” he asked before turning and walking back towards his work station.

“I guess,” Jade started, and wasn’t able to stop. “Maybe you shouldn’t have told her we were together.” That made Nacho pause and turn to look at her. “I mean,” Jade tightened her arms around her chest, suddenly nervous. “Unless she’s someone who needs to think that ’cause Tuco...”

Nacho stared at her for a second before continuing to his work station. “She’s got nothing to do with Tuco.” His eyes weren’t on her anymore; instead, he was focusing on cleaning up the area around his sewing machine. Still, Jade felt nervous. She looked down at the finished restaurant booth seat. Jade lowered herself to the ground to sit on it while trying to continue with the conversation since Nacho obviously wasn’t going to.

“I don’t know why you’d want to piss her off for no reason.” She leaned back on the seat, her legs straight out in front of her on the concrete floor. She kept her hands in her lap and her eyes on her Adidas while waiting for Nacho’s response, if he even would.

“I figured you’d appreciate it,” he finally answered. Her eyes snapped up to where Nacho stood, still organizing his workbench. “I’m almost finished here. I just have to lock up, and we can go,” he changed the subject without so much as a glance over to her, and Jade ignored it.

“You thought I’d appreciate you getting screamed at by your bitch of an ex?” Jade rose her voice, and he looked back at her with a frown.

“Really?”

“She’s a fucking bitch. She walks in here like she owns the place, pushes me aside, and demands to talk to you? And then—” Jade laughed humorlessly, her nerves giving way to anger, “— she literally scared the guys out of the workshop so she can just scream at you! If I really were your girlfriend, I’d be fucking pissed!”

“If you really were my girlfriend?” he asked, looking over to her with his hands on the workstation.

“Did something change and I forgot about it? Or did you actually start believing that bullshit you’re telling literally everyone?” She’d lost her filter without even realizing it, and it seemed to push Nacho over the edge as well.

“Are you not?” he asked her, Nacho’s voice losing its calmness as well. “Is there anything indicating that we’re not together?”

“Yes!” Jade scrambled back to her feet from the booth seat on the ground. “Literally everything, Nacho. Nothing about this weird-ass relationship says that we’re dating— we’ve never even gone on a date. You’ve never actually asked me out!”

“You called Emilio’s party a date,” he pointed out, standing straight as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

“Where literally everyone but me thought we were a couple? And you—” Jade physically pointed at him, “You said it wasn’t a date!”

“I said you didn’t know what a date was—”

“That means the same thing—!”

“Just— What do you want?!” he was close to yelling back at her now. His arm fell away from his chest in an exasperated shrug, “Do you want to go on an actual date?!”

Through her anger, Jade almost didn’t realize what had just happened. She was ready to keep shouting at him, fighting as he and Carmen had earlier in the day until her brain stalled, and her tongue froze. Instead, Jade blinked at him, her mouth falling slightly open.

Nacho immediately cooled off as well, running a hand down his face. He looked around the rest of the workshop as if searching for what to say. “Saturday? Since we’re both off?” were the words he had found, speaking them with a slight sigh.

Jade blinked. “Okay,” her voice came out much softer than it had been, making her sound almost timid.

He looked like he hadn’t expected her to agree, or like she’d keep yelling at him. Slowly he nodded. “Do you… have something nice to wear?” Nacho asked Jade cautiously like his question might set her off again.

“Uh-huh,” Jade nodded, slowly falling into the realization that this was happening. Nacho was asking her out, for real. To stop herself from smiling, she had to bite her lip.

Nacho’s shoulders relaxed with her response, and he nodded himself. “Okay. I’ll call some places… I’m gonna lock up, and we can leave, okay?” he jabbed his thumb towards the front of the upholstery shop.

“Okay,” Jade answered, trying to sound calm and neutral although she wanted to scream, this time with joy. Nacho turned and walked through the storeroom towards the office and immediately slapped both her hands over her mouth to keep herself from letting lose that scream. Keeping them there, she jumped up and down in a few circles in her excitement before pulling her phone out and immediately texting Tammy and Lena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ay, ¿qué chingado? Solo dejalo caer.” — Oh, what the fuck? Just drop it.
> 
> “Aquí no.” — Not here.
> 
> “Esta es la única forma de obtener una respuesta tuya, Nacho. Alberto necesita tu ayuda—" — This is the only way to get a response from you, Nacho. Alberto needs your help— 
> 
> “Dije no aquí. No hagas esto frente a ella. Llamaré a Alberto cuando esté fuera del trabajo si necesita mi ayuda.” — I said not here. Don't do this in front of her. I'll call Alberto when I'm off work if he needs my help.
> 
> “¿En frente de ella? ¿Quién chingado es ella, Nacho?”— In front of her? Who the fuck is she, Nacho?
> 
> “Ella es mi novia.” — She’s my girlfriend.
> 
> “¿Tu— Tu _novia_?!” — Your—your _girlfriend_?!
> 
> “Necesitas irte.” — You need to leave.
> 
> “¿¡ _Ella_ es tu novia!? ¿¡Esa _niña_!? ¿Cuándo conseguiste una novia? ¿Por qué no me lo dijiste? ¿Cuándo comenzó a trabajar aquí? ¿Dónde la encontraste? ¡¿Es esa la única forma en que puedes encontrar a alguien para lidiar con tu mierda, conseguir a alguien demasiado joven y estúpido para enamorarse de ti ?!” — _She_ is your girlfriend!? That _little girl_!? When did you get a girlfriend!? Why didn’t you tell me?! When did she start working here?! Where did you find her?! Is that the only way you can find someone to deal with your bullshit, get someone too young and stupid to fall for you?!
> 
> 😮 What just happened? Was that real? They're actually going on a date? Yes, yes they are.
> 
> So, as I said, hopefully, the contents made up for the lack of quantity. Let me know if you liked it, 'cause the boyfriend sure did. It caught him way off guard, it was kind of funny. Also, huge thanks to him for helping with the Spanish when Carmen blows up. She does also kind of come out of nowhere if you haven't been reading Hard To Be a God, so maybe check that out if you haven't? At least the second chapter.
> 
> Alright, enough shameless plugging of my own stuff. Thanks for all the love from the last chapter, it's really helping me get through June. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy ❤


	22. Anthems For a Seventeen Year Old Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corey and Joel surprise Jade's group of friends. Jade's mom learns that she's going on a "real" date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title Credit to Broken Social Scene's song "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl".
> 
> This chapter is about 17 and a half novel pages, and Grammarly estimates it will take about 31 minutes to read. 
> 
> The spoiler warning is remaining at Season 2, Episode 2 "Cobbler" of Better Call Saul in this chapter. There are no other content warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Also, no Spanish was used in this chapter 🙌

The next day Nacho had agreed to drop her off at the mall after work; she probably didn’t even need to add that it was closer to his apartment than her house. When Nacho had asked her out and then asked her if she owned something nice to wear, she panicked and said yes. In truth, she did not. That same night she ended up calling Lena for help, and it was thanks to her that this ended up turning into a hangout with all her friends at the mall. That, unfortunately, included Corey despite Jade telling Lena directly that she “needed a dress for a date with Nacho.”

Thankfully Nacho didn’t keep her at the shop much past closing, and they arrived just before five in the afternoon. Even though Nacho hadn’t asked her any questions, she knew he had them. What she was doing, who she was hanging out with, those kinds of questions. Instead, the only question he asked was when he pulled his van up to the curb outside one of the mall’s entrances was, “Do you need a ride home later tonight?”

“Nah,” Jade responded with a shake of her head, making eye contact with Nacho as he put his van in park. Even if she did need a ride, she couldn’t have Nacho pick her up after buying a new dress, shoes, and the like for their date. “I’ll be okay. Just pick me up in the morning for work.”

“Here?” Nacho rose an eyebrow before smiling at her.

“Yeah, here,” Jade answered sarcastically. “I’m gonna spend the night at the mall.”

“Be sure to tell me how that works out,” he started off seriously but ended up smiling cheekily at her.

“Totally. I’m gonna eat all the leftover food court food when the mall closes and then crash in the beds they have at Macy’s,” Jade falsely explained while trying not to laugh at him.

Before he could come up with a response, Jade watched Nacho’s eyes leave hers shortly before she heard a series of quick, short knocks on the passenger window. She turned around in her seat, immediately recognizing Lena on the other side of the window. Before opening the door, Jade undid her seatbelt. She couldn’t get out of the van, however. Lena had stayed blocking Jade, keeping her in her seat.

“Hey, Nacho,” Lena greeted him quickly, glancing behind Jade at Nacho, before looking back to her, “Corey brought his girlfriend.”

“What?” Jade asked, immediately shocked. She looked back to Nacho as well, noticing his eyebrows had shot up. He must have felt similarly surprised.

“He’s got a girlfriend?” Nacho asked them both.

“Yeah, apparently. We’re all just as surprised as you,” Lena confirmed for Nacho before addressing Jade again. “Like, Joel didn’t even know about her. It’s really weird.”

“Uh, okay?” Jade wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Like, you’re cool with it, though?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking if she’s cool with me?” Jade turned the question around, raising an eyebrow at Lena.

“Babe, who cares about her?” Lena shot back with a smirk.

“That’s mean,” Jade laughed. “Move,” she shooed her back so she could get out of Nacho’s van.

“You sure you won’t need me to pick you up?” Nacho questioned, still in the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thanks, Nacho,” she smiled at him.

“Bye, Nacho,” Lena also smiled, before closing the passenger door of Nacho’s van. As soon as he did, he broke eye contact with Jade, slowly rolling away from the curb. “So, is it me, or is he cuter when he has both a mustache and a goatee?”

“Shut up,” Jade laughed at her friend, turning around to follow her into the mall. “But yeah, he’s hot with both, right?” she added, and Lena laughed this time.

“I can’t believe he’s taking you on a date, though. You totally don’t look like his type, babe,” Lena pulled the glass door open for Jade and followed her into the food court.

“You haven’t told everyone, right?” Jade asked her friend, suddenly serious. If she had, it might explain Corey’s sudden ploy of bringing a random girl to a mall hangout, calling her his girlfriend.

“No, just me and Tammy know. Everyone else thinks that we’re just hanging out,” Lena reassured Jade. She still wondered, with Tammy dating Jesse now, if she might have told him something. If she had, even in good faith, Jesse would definitely tell Corey.

“Babe, chill,” Lena nudged Jade’s arm, able to tell what Jade was thinking.

“I’m chill,” Jade forced a smile for her friend. “Where is everyone?”

“We got a table in the food court. Want a smoothie?” Lena suggested, and Jade nodded in agreement, so the pair headed towards the smoothie stand first.

When both girls had their mango smoothies in hand, Lena led Jade towards the table with all of their friends. It appeared to her then that it was only couples. Taylor was sat across Jesse and Tammy. On their right was Corey and his new girlfriend, who’s slightly greasy black hair and angular face gave Jade Wendy Torrance vibes. Across the table from them was Joel and apparently his new girlfriend as well. As she came into view, however, Jade stopped walking with a quiet, “Fuck.”

“‘S’up babe?” Lena stopped and turned back to look at Jade before sticking her smoothie straw in her mouth.

“Uh, I know her,” Jade admitted, looking away from Joel’s girlfriend to meet Lena’s questioning gaze.

“Corey’s girl?”

“Joel’s,” Jade corrected her.

“Who, Morena?” Lena looked over to the table again. “She’s kind of an eyeful, right? You okay with her?”

“Yeah, I think we’re good…”

“Apparently they’ve only been dating, like, a week,” Jade looked at Morena next to Joel as they started walking again. “Small world, huh?” Lena asked.

“Yeah.” Jade took a deep breath in, telling herself that everything would be fine. She didn’t have a problem with Morena. As far as Jade knew, she and Nacho hadn’t seen each other again, and if she was really dating Joel, there was no way she was still sleeping with Nacho. Jade couldn’t imagine either guy being cool with that.

As they came up on the table, Lena bent down to kiss her boyfriend on the cheek before sitting next to him. “Guess who I found?” Lena announced as Jade sat between her and Joel.

She was immediately greeted by her friends at the table, ranging from smiles and nods to a full-on, “It took you long enough, shit,” from Taylor.

“Shut up, I have a legit job, unlike some people here,” Jade teased him.

“Low blow, man,” Taylor laughed back at her.

“Yeah, not like we all know people who can just give us jobs,” Jesse added before getting elbowed by Tammy.

“Sounds like someone’s jealous,” Joel laughed next to Jade. When she looked to her left at him, however, she caught a glimpse of Morena’s face on the other side of Joel, her expression halfway between surprised and afraid.

Jade made herself smile as she leaned forward to better see around Joel. “Hey, Morena,” she greeted her, figuring it was better than Morena being angry or upset.

“Hey, Jade,” she looked as if she was trying to relax.

“Did, uh, Nacho ever pay you back for the phone minutes?” Jade remembered she technically owed her money for that call she made to Corey a few weeks ago.

“Oh, um, yeah. He gave me some cash, it’s good,” Morena finally smiled back at her.

“Sweet, okay,” Jade nodded before catching Joel’s slack-jawed expression. “What?” she asked him.

“You… know each other?” he asked, looking from Jade to Morena.

“I fucking know everyone, you know that,” Jade laughed before taking a sip of her smoothie. “Oh,” she quickly swallowed as she looked across the table. “I don’t know you, though! Hi, I’m Jade,” she introduced herself to Corey’s new girlfriend, giving her the same smile she had to Morena.

“Hey,” she replied shyly, and Corey stepped in to introduce her.

“Jade, this is my girlfriend, April,” he cleared his throat before slipping his arm around her.

“Awesome,” she smiled at him while simultaneously trying to give him a look that said, _“I don’t care that you got a new girlfriend, you better not be using her to try and make me jealous like some dickhead.”_ “So, when’d that happen?” she questioned before drinking more of her smoothie.

“Like three months ago,” April responded quietly through a smile of her own, but Jade almost choked.

“Hold up, you’ve been hiding her for three months?” Jesse must have realized the same thing Jade had.

“Shit, what are you, embarrassed of us or something?” Taylor asked him.

“When’s the last time we literally all hung out?” Corey defended himself. Mentally counting, Jade realized that three months ago was Jesse’s party. Three months ago was when they all hung out. She wondered if Corey and April were a thing during that party, or if it was something that happened when Corey had all those days off of dealing that Jade had bargained Nacho for.

“Whatever, dude,” Joel laughed at him before directing his next question to April, “Did he ever even mention us to you?”

“Uh, in passing,” April looked up to Corey next to her.

“He’s totally embarrassed about us,” Jade turned to Taylor, speaking with a straight face despite only joking around.

“I mean, it’s not like we’re a bunch of weirdos,” Taylor started before laughing halfway through his sentence.

“We’re totally weirdos,” Jade laughed as well.

“Yep, totally,” Tammy agreed before smiling at April.

“No wonder I never brought her up before,” Corey sighed, unamused.

“Whatever, Joel brought his girl around first chance he got,” Jesse pointed out.

“Morena’s cool with us, though, aren’t you babe?” Lena asked her.

“Yeah, you guys are cool,” Morena nodded before meeting Jade’s eyes as if speaking directly to her. Well, at least they weren’t at each other’s throats because some dumb shit Nacho did.

Jade looked to her other side at Lena and Taylor, then across the table at Jesse, Tammy, Corey, and April. “Jeez, I feel so weird. I’m like a literal ninth wheel,” she laughed.

“I could always call Combo up?” Jesse offered with a teasing smile.

“Seriously?” Tammy asked him as Jade immediately flipped him off.

“All they’re gonna do is fight,” Taylor sighed, talking about Combo and Jade.

“Yeah, I got a better idea,” Lena spoke up. “Come on, babe. Let’s go shop,” she stood up, waving Jade along.

“Wait, what?” Taylor asked.

“So, you’re just ditching us?” Jesse added as Tammy stood up as well.

“Yeah, we are. Go to the arcade or something,” Jade shrugged, before realizing that both Morena and April were still sitting at the table. “You girls coming?” she prompted.

“Pfft, shopping? Hell yeah,” Morena stood up quickly before kissing Joel on the cheek three times in a row. “I’ll be back later, baby.”

“Uh, okay,” he nodded, though he had the same look of betrayal that Jesse and Taylor had.

“April, come on, babe,” Lena waved her along as well, and she hesitantly stood.

“Okay,” she looked at Corey, who nodded at her as if giving permission before she joined the rest of the girls.

“Later losers,” Jade teased the four guys left at the table before turning around and walking away with the rest of the girls.

“So, April,” Lena started as soon as they were out of earshot, “Corey hardly mentions us? What do you know?”

“I…, um,” April looked nervous. “Not much, really.”

“So,” Jade started off, “In the light of complete honesty and good intentions, I’m Corey’s ex.” She looked over to April to see her face fall slightly as they walked.

“You… are?” she asked.

“Yeah, they dated for a bit,” Lena nodded in agreement. “Broke up, what, four months ago?”

“Yeah, about,” Jade nodded before drinking more smoothie. It was nearly finished, and she subconsciously started looking for a trashcan.

“We’re not telling you to freak you out, though,” Tammy added in, obviously noticing April’s expression. “It’s just you should know.”

“Right? Like, I don’t care. I’m happy for you guys,” Jade agreed.

“You’re totally cute together,” Lena added with a smile, and it was contagious for April.

“Thanks,” she crossed her arms as she walked.

“Also,” Jade turned to her other side, where Morena was walking next to her. “In the spirit of being one hundred percent honest, I’m not Nacho’s girlfriend. I mean, I wasn’t when we met.”

“Wait, seriously?” Morena asked, slowing down.

“Yeah. It’s some bullshit he was literally telling everyone because he had lied to Tuco about it to get him off my back,” Jade explained, though she watered down the reasoning. Even though she was in “truth” mode, Jade wasn’t about to say Tuco had tried taking her hand off with a bowie knife.

“That actually makes a lot of sense. Tuco’s fucking hard to deal with, girl. You handled him alright that night, though.”

“I’ve had lots of practice,” Jade shrugged before finishing off her smoothie and tossing it in a trashcan they passed. Lena did the same with her smoothie as well.

“So… does that mean you’re Nacho’s girlfriend now?” Tammy posed.

“I dunno.”

“You don’t know?” Morena asked.

“Babe, he asked you on a date. You’re dating,” Lena explained, “That’s literally what dating means.”

“But, like,” Jade started to laugh, “You shoulda seen how it happened. We were arguing, like, practically yelling at each other at work yesterday.”

“Isn’t Nacho your boss now, though?” Tammy asked.

“He’s always been my boss,” Jade explained with a shrug.

“I can totally see it," Morena nodded. “That’s something he’d do, for sure.”

“What’s worse is I literally met his ex yesterday, too,” Jade nodded.

“What, at work?” Lena asked her, and Jade turned her head to nod again.

“Yeah, she fucking came into the shop like she owned the place and stormed into the back to start screaming at him.”

“Seriously? What’d she look like?” Morena asked.

“Uh, gorgeous? Expensive? Those are the first two words that come to mind,” Jade forced herself to laugh, although she did feel the remnants of that void that had filled her upon meeting Carmen.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Lena reassured Jade. “Gorgeous and expensive. We’ll find you a dress that makes you look like that too.”

~-----~

Jade was standing before a full-length mirror near the dressing rooms of some fancy boutique she’d never been inside before. It had been Morena’s idea, and Lena had doubled down. After about thirty minutes between browsing and trying on several dresses, Jade was already exhausted.

“There’s no way I can wear this dress,” Jade sighed, staring at her reflection. After trying on three of the shortest dresses in the shop (Morena insisted that Nacho had a thing for legs), Tammy had finally grabbed the red chiffon dress off the rack and handed it to Jade. It was pretty, sure, with the flowy skirt reaching just above her knees. The dress was a bright, ruby red, and Jade found herself drawn to the color. Unfortunately, the dress also had a halter neck, meaning it had a wide-open back. The front had a deep plunging neckline, exposing nearly all of Jade’s sternum and, along with it, her bra.

“I didn’t know it was so low cut in the front,” Tammy shrugged.

“It’s fine,” Morena, who was standing on Jade’s other side, shrugged.

“It’s fine?” Jade turned, asking. There was no way she was hiding a bra in this dress. “I can’t wear this with a bra.”

“Yeah, girl. Take your bra off. That dress wasn’t meant to be worn with a bra,” Morena smiled back at Jade’s modesty. When Jade didn’t immediately respond, Morena stepped behind Jade. In another second, Jade felt the back of her bra come undone.

“Wait, seriously?” Jade’s hands immediately went to her bra cups over the dress’s front, holding them in place.

“Yes, seriously. Take it off, the dress will look a thousand times better. Besides, it’s not like you need a bra,” Morena insisted. Jade wasn’t sure if the remark about her not needing a bra was a quip about her lacking in the boob department, especially with how well endowed Morena was in that same area.

“Just try it,” Tammy shrugged on Jade’s right, and she looked to her friend before finally agreeing and slipping the straps off her shoulders. Making sure the front of the dress stayed in place, Jade pulled the bra out from beneath the dress before handing it to Tammy.

“There!” Morena smiled happily. “See? Look how great you look in that dress now!” she added in excitement.

“Yeah, you actually look outstanding,” Tammy agreed while Jade took in her renewed reflection. She did, honestly, but Jade also wasn’t sure if she had the confidence to pull the dress off.

“You’re not spilling out of the sides or anything,” Morena pointed out, adding, “raise your arms up.” Jade did as she was told, allowing Morena to turn her sideways. “Yeah, you look great, you need this dress, girl,” Morena insisted as Jade kept her arms up, shifting around a bit to see if the sides of the dress would gap or shift to reveal anything. Thankfully, they didn’t.

“I don’t know—” she started to say, thinking again on how much exposed skin was showing.

“Yes,” Jade was cut off as Lena and April returned from the sales floor, carrying a few more dresses. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s it. Babe, that’s the dress. Tammy, you’re a fucking genius,” she added as a compliment, making Tammy smile.

“Thanks, but I don’t think Jade’s into it,” Tammy held up Jade’s bra.

“But, you look stunning!” Lena exclaimed, before forcing an opinion out of April. “Right, babe?” Lena asked, nudging April’s arm with her elbow.

“Uh, you look really pretty,” April stated, sounding shy and slightly awkward.

“Thank you,” Jade forced a smile despite her nerves. “It’s just… this isn’t too much?”

“Honestly, if Nacho doesn’t take you home and bang you after your date, there’s seriously something wrong with him,” Lena stated flatly, her hands on her hips. The new dresses seemed to already be forgotten.

“Oh my god, Lena!” Jade laughed, joined by Tammy, who shook her head.

“So is that the point to this date then? End goal: sleep with Nacho?” she asked.

“Wait, he still hasn’t fucked you?” Morena spoke up before Jade could even answer Tammy, and her hands went to her face to try and hide her blush.

“Nope,” Jade groaned, now hiding her eyes as well as her cheeks.

“It’s way past due,” Lena agreed.

“Seriously. The way the guys talk about you two, you’d think you’d been sleeping with each other for months already. I still can’t believe this is your first date.”

“The guys?” Tammy asked her.

“Not our guys,” Jade explained.

“Oh, right. Nacho’s friends,” Morena explained shortly with a nod.

“Nacho has friends?” Lena then asked, looking at Jade for her response.

“Of course he has friends,” Jade let her hands fall away from her face, “He’s not a hermit.”

“If he could be, he would be,” Morena shrugged. “I’m actually not sure if he considers any of the guys his friends.”

“They’re his friends. I mean, at least Carlos and Domingo,” Jade insisted before realizing that even adding in Carlos to Nacho’s short friend list was a stretch. 

“Yeah, I guess he and Domingo are pretty tight. I’ve only met him a couple of times. He and Joel started going to the club only recently,” Morena crossed her arms and Jade looked behind herself before backing up to sit on a waiting seat, and Tammy joined her.

“What club?” Lena asked, and Jade understood then that her friends didn’t know what Morena’s job was and how she knew Nacho.

“4’s Cabaret,” Morena answered Lena honestly. Jade watched Lena’s realization, before looking to her right at Tammy, seeing the same revelation in her.

“Nacho is taking Joel to a strip club?” Lena crossed her arms as well, and April, behind her, looked slightly uncomfortable.

“Yeah, all the guys go. It’s, like, Tuco’s thing, I guess,” Morena shrugged with her answer.

“What about Taylor?” Lena asked the next logical question before glancing at Tammy and April. “Or Jesse, or Corey?”

“Nah, you girls are good,” Morena smiled, understanding what Lena was getting at. “I mean, shit, Nacho’s hardly into it anymore. Half the time he’s at the bar all sad bastard like,” she laughed as she turned to Jade with her admission. Since getting her job at the upholstery shop, Jade hardly knew what Nacho’s schedule was like, aside from work. It was as if he had completely flipped, where before she had no idea what he did outside of cartel work.

“Sad bastard, huh?” Jade forced herself to smile, despite feeling a twinge of jealousy that Nacho was even still going to the club with the guys. Sure he’d asked her out less than twenty-four hours ago, but he had also thought they were more than friends already. “That’s… kind of pathetic,” Jade added, and Tammy laughed next to her.

“You have to be giving him ‘don’t fuck me’ vibes, babe. That’s literally the only reason he hasn’t slept with you yet,” Lena sighed as she turned an accusatory look at Jade.

“I’m not!” Jade sighed in exasperation, throwing her arms up in an exaggerated shrug.

“Uh-huh, sure,” Lena nodded. “So we’re going with the ‘fuck me’ dress then?” 

“The ‘fuck me’ dress’?”

“That dress totally says ‘fuck me’. But, like, in a classy way,” Morena agreed. “You need it.”

“Tams, what do you think?” Lena prompted.

“Uh… usually, I’d say you do you,” Tammy turned to Jade, “but Lena has a point.”

“Exactly!” Lena turned to April then, “What about you, babe?”

“Um… I-I don’t know,” April shrugged, as if afraid to take anyone’s side.

“You can say you like it, it’s cool,” Jade told her before sighing. “And, I already know you’re going to say ‘majority rules’,” she stopped Lena as she opened her mouth to speak. “So, fine. This is the dress.”

“Yes!” Morena laughed, “You seriously look amazing, Nacho’s jaw is gonna hit the floor when he sees you.”

“It better, or else there’s no hope for that man,” Lena nodded. Next to her, Jade felt Tammy check the price tag hanging off the dress. When she looked to her face, Jade’s stomach sank.

“What?” she asked, suddenly worried about how expensive the dress was.

“Um,” Tammy stared at the price tag for another moment before looking up to meet Jade’s eyes. “How much money do you have?”

“Why?” Jade asked, but Morena had already leaned over her to check the price tag herself.

“Girl, if you can’t get this yourself, get Nacho to buy this for you,” she told Jade seriously.

“Why? How expensive is it—?” Jade finally got ahold of the price tag, only to see that the dress was nearly four hundred fifty dollars.

“Oh my god, Tammy!” Jade tore her eyes off the price tag.

“I didn’t look at the tag when I grabbed it!” she said in her defense.

“I’m serious, get Nacho to come down here and buy the dress for you,” Morena insisted.

“I can’t just be, like, ‘hey, come buy this dress for me for our date.’ That’s so weird,” Jade sighed.

“He used to give me cash all the time,” Morena stated, and Jade felt that twinge of jealousy again. Of course he’d give her cash, she was a stripper, and they had been screwing for who knows how long. “Just tell him you need cash, don’t say what for.” Jade looked from her to Lena, seeing how her friend was confused at what Morena had said, and she wasn't the only one. Jade realized that her own knowledge of Nacho and Morena’s relationship wasn’t apparent to her, Tammy, or April.

“It’s fine, I can afford it,” Jade admitted. “I have a legit job, remember?” she added while thinking of the single paycheck of laundered money in her bank account.

“What about shoes?” Morena quirked an eyebrow.

“I’m good, as long as they aren’t four hundred dollars also,” Jade looked back to Tammy and received a sheepish smile.

“We’ll check the prices before you try anything on,” Lena agreed. “Tams, help April put these back?”

“Sure,” Tammy stood up, taking the dresses Lena had and wandered back to the sales floor with April.

“Here, give me the price tag, and we’ll go ring you up,” Morena held her hand out.

“What?” Jade asked, suddenly confused. “Why?”

“You need to wear the dress while we pick out shoes,” Lena explained for her.

“I can’t just wear this out in the mall!”

“Why? Are you afraid of getting catcalled?” Lena laughed. “It’s fine, babe, I’ll grab your things from the dressing room and meet you at the register with Morena.”

“Lena, I can’t wear this— I don’t want the guys to see this,” Jade explained.

“Then just change back after we get you shoes, girl,” Morena pulled Jade out of her seat, ushering her along to the register. When they reached the register, Morena had the lady cut the price tag off the dress instead of risking damaging the chiffon material by ripping it off herself. Lena joined them shortly after at the register with Jade’s clothes and wallet. After paying for the dress, the three joined Tammy and April, who were waiting outside the store.

~-----~

“Hey, mom?” Jade asked before gently knocking on her parent’s bedroom door.

After a few seconds, she heard a response. “Come in, honey.” Jade turned the handle of the door and pushed it open enough to poke her head inside. She found her mother, still in her flannel pajamas and in bed, with a book in her hand, the bedside lamp on, and the curtains drawn closed.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jade tested, figuring her mother was having a bad day. At least she was awake.

“Sure, honey. Come in,” Jade’s mom waved her over. She stepped inside, making her way to the foot of the bed so she could sit.

“Do you, uh,” Jade started, wondering how to ask her mom the question. “Do you have some actual jewelry I could borrow?”

Immediately her mother’s dark eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

“Um,” Jade couldn’t help but smile. “I’m going on a date with a guy. Like, a nice date. Like, I bought an expensive dress and heels and everything.”

Jade’s mother’s eyebrows shot up at that statement. “Oh, really? With What’ s-His-Name?” she asked, and Jade rolled her eyes.

“No, not Corey. God, we broke up months ago,” Jade stressed.

“Okay, well, you barely talk to us anymore, and you hardly brought him around in the first place,” her mother defended herself.

“You and dad hated Corey,” Jade deadpanned.

“We did not hate him; he was just… odd…”

“Odd? Sure,” Jade half agreed. “Odd” could be used to describe Corey, but it wasn’t the first word to come to mind.

“So, new guy then?” her mom probed.

“Yeah. Well, new to you guys. I’ve known him a few months already. Since early summer.”

“I can tell by the smile you like him,” Jade’s mom chuckled, but Jade hadn’t even realized she started smiling again.

“I mean, well,” Jade tried immediately relaxing her cheeks. “He is a guy, I guess.”

Her mother rose an eyebrow before sighing at Jade’s response. “You bought a dress, then? Go put it on and show me. I’ll pull out my jewelry boxes.”

“Thanks, mom,” Jade stood back up before leaving the room to enter her own just across the hallway. After closing the door, she immediately stripped down to her underwear. Tossing her clothes, including her bra, onto her bed, Jade picked up the shopping bag with the dress and unwrapped it from the tissue paper it was folded in. She quickly shimmied into the dress, struggling with the clasp at the back of her neck for a good minute before it was finally secured and didn’t feel like it would come undone. After she straightened the dress out around her thighs, making sure the chiffon was falling straight down and that it wasn’t caught on the lining. Jade then fixed the fabric over her chest, making sure she was covered entirely, before making her way back to her mother’s room.

Jade found her mom on her knees at the foot of the bed, pulling several wooden jewelry boxes out from underneath the bed frame and setting them on the fluffy duvet cover. When her mother noticed Jade had re-entered, she did a double-take. “You… You bought that dress?”

“Oh my god, mom!” Jade whined.

“I… I’m just… a little surprised is all,” her mother stood up and took a few steps toward Jade.

“You can’t tell me I can’t wear it, I’m nineteen,” Jade stressed, afraid that’s what her mother was going to do. “The bottom is technically school dress code, it’s almost to my knees,” she added as if the open back and plunging neckline weren’t up for scrutiny.

“I know, Diana, I’m just a bit surprised,” her mom reiterated, still taking in her daughter’s appearance. “This might be a bit more serious than I thought.”

“What do you mean?” Jade placed her hands on her hips.

“Well, for one, you aren’t wearing a bra. Are you planning on wearing a bra for your date?”

“Mom!” Jade started regretting asking her mom for help. She should have just gone to Walmart or something and bought fake jewelry. Nobody would notice, she couldn’t even tell the difference.

“Well? I’m just asking,” she pressed, and Jade sighed again in exasperation.

“I can’t wear a bra with this dress, it’s impossible.”

“Why not?” her mother’s eyebrows were furrowed again. Jade simply turned around, moving her hair to the side to show her mom the halter neck and low back. “Oh my god, okay. Honey,” her mom took a deep breath and looked like she was forcing a smile. “Do not let your father see you in this dress. He’ll have an aneurysm.”

“Mom,” Jade sighed again, turning back around to face her.

“I’m serious. He’s thirty-eight and in great health, but if he sees you in that dress, he will drop dead,” her mom insisted. “So, did you have anything in mind, or do you want me to choose?”

“I don’t know. The last time I wore real jewelry was prom,” Jade admitted, walking forward and sitting next to the boxes on the bed.

“I suppose your great grandmother’s pearls would be too gaudy?” her mom asked, opening up the boxes.

“You’d really trust me with a century-old pearl necklace?” Jade rose her own eyebrow.

“It’s like sixty years old,” her mother corrected, looking Jade over again before continuing to look through the boxes. “What tone are you, honey?”

“What tone am I?” Jade asked, confused.

“Show me your wrists,” her mom prompted. Still confused, Jade did as she was told. “Cool-toned, okay. Does silver sound good?”

“Uh—” Jade didn’t understand, looking at her wrists herself but didn’t see what her mom had.

“Actually,” her mom stopped in thought, her index finger over her lips like she was shushing Jade. “This will probably be worse than trusting you with sixty-year-old pearls, but I think you’ll go for it,” she half explained after a silent moment’s thought.

“What’s worse?” Jade asked as her mother turned around and opened the closet before dragging out the small fire safe her parents kept in there.

“Lending you this,” she told Jade as she dropped to her knees to open the safe. Jade watched as she pulled out a large, teal, satin-covered box. To Jade, it looked like an oversized ring box. Still on her knees, she shuffled over to Jade on the bed before opening the box to show her daughter. Inside was a simple round diamond pendant necklace on a thin silver-looking chain and two matching single diamond earrings.

“Your dad got me this for our tenth anniversary forever ago,” her mother sounded proud. “Want to put it on?”

“Sure,” Jade shrugged, thought it just looked like everyday jewelry to her. She stood from the bed, helping her mom stand back up after, and allowed her mom to put the necklace on her before she put the earrings in herself.

“Take a look,” her mom smiled at her before closing the closet door, so Jade could use the mirror. The chain for the necklace was so small it was barely noticeable until Jade stepped closer to the mirror. The round diamond pendant was the main attention grabber, sitting just at the dip between her collar bones and catching every ray of light it could. When her mother pulled and held her blonde hair back in a mock ponytail, Jade noticed that the matching diamond stud earrings were doing the same thing.

“You like them?” she asked Jade and got a small shrug in response.

“Yeah, they’re alright.” In all honesty, they didn’t look half bad with the dress, and it also didn’t look like she was trying too hard. She looked… grown-up.

“I’d hope they’re alright. They’re Tiffany diamonds, and a platinum chain,” her mom dropped her hair and placed her hands on her hips, looking slightly up at Jade with a frown.

“Oh,” Jade looked back at the necklace briefly with a smile. “Guy I’m going on a date with has these crazy Tiffany drinking glasses at his place.” Jade kept the smile as she returned her gaze to her mother but lost it when she saw her mom’s perplexed look.

“What?”

“Mm, nothing. Earrings,” she held the palm of her left hand out, and Jade started taking them out of her ears, handing them over. “When’s the date?”

“Couple days, this Saturday,” Jade answered after handing both earrings over. She held her hair out of the way again as her mother undid the clasp of the necklace.

“Okay. Do you know where you’re going?”

“Uh, not really? Some fancy place downtown,” Jade answered again as her mom put everything back in the teal box.

“He knows you’re not old enough to drink, right?” her mother paused briefly to look up at Jade with her dark eyes and a frown on her lips.

“There’s more than just bars downtown, mom. Jesus,” Jade sighed.

“Okay,” her mom thankfully didn’t argue, and instead looked Jade over again in her dress. “You grew up too fast,” she said out of nowhere, and Jade frowned herself.

“What?” she asked before she saw tears flooding her mother’s eyes. “Mom, oh my god,” she sighed.

“I’m sorry,” one of the tears streaked down her mom’s cheek. “It’s just,” she quickly tried wiping it away, but another two replaced it, “When I was your age, I already had this perfect baby girl, and now she’s barely a teenager anymore, and she’s going on real dates—”

“Mom,” Jade sighed before stepping forward to hug her. “You have more than one baby,” she tried comforting the slightly shorter woman.

“Your brother is in high school already, and I feel like I’m smothering your sister,” her mom kept crying. It was the first time Jade realized that her brother, whom she vividly remembered running around naked when he discovered how to rip off his own diapers, was a freshman in high school.

“Well, I mean you and dad aren’t that old,” Jade suggested, then suddenly wondered if she was seriously telling her mom to have another baby.

“You know that’d mean the baby gets your room, and you’re moving out, right?” her mom pulled back but kept her hands on Jade’s shoulders.

“You know, on second thought,” Jade scrunched up her nose before laughing. “You know the next logical thing you’re telling me is that you want grandbabies,” she added, thinking it’d make her mom laugh. Instead, her expression went serious.

“I’m calling the doctor,” she told Jade quickly before making for the bedroom door.

“Wait, what?” Jade asked, turning around as she watched her mom speed walk away. “Mom! What? I was kidding! Mom?” Jade followed her to the living room, watching as her mother picked up the telephone and pulled out their phone book. “Why are you calling a doctor?” Jade pressed, and after her mom had already found and dialed the number, she looked back up at Jade.

“Birth control,” was all she said, and Jade immediately rolled her eyes.

“Ugh, god! Seriously, mom?” Jade groaned before plopping down on the nearby recliner, already giving up.

“Seriously. We should have done this for you years ago,” she told her daughter before immediately switching to a pleasant, semi-professional voice. “Hello, yes. This is Judy Martin, I need to make an appointment with Dr. Masood. As soon as possible, please.”

“I have a job now,” Jade said in a monotone voice, unsure if her mother was paying attention.

“It’s not for me, it’s for my daughter Diana,” she continued with a few short “mhms” after. “Tomorrow at ten sounds perfect.”

“Mom, I have a job!” Jade sat up in the recliner. She couldn’t hardly get Nacho to give her a day off when she was dealing for him. Now that she had a real job, she figured it’d be a thousand times harder.

“Well, now you have a gynecologist appointment at ten tomorrow morning. If its any respectable job, they’ll let you go,” her mom argued, hanging up with the receptionist.

“Gyne—Mom—What?!” Jade asked, her eyes going wide, “Why?!”

“That’s where you’ll get your birth control. Please calm down, its fine, honey,” her mom explained.

“Mom, this is insane, it’s just a date—”

“In that dress. Unless he’s a girl or a eunuch—”

“Mom, what the fuck!?”

“Look, this is a good thing. It’s responsible, okay?” her mother sighed, but her eyes left Jade, landing on someone standing in the hallway.

“What’s happening?” Jade heard Elle’s voice ask and turned to find a skeptical look on her younger sister’s face.

“Nothing, honey,” their mom sighed.

“Why’s Jade in a gross dress?” she asked next, eyes quickly scanning up and down Jade’s attire.

“It’s not gross, you’re gross,” Jade shot back childishly. Without missing a beat, Elle stuck her tongue out at Jade, and she returned the gesture.

“Girls,” their mom rubbed at her forehead, “Stop.” She waited a moment before continuing. “Elizabeth, don’t mention this to your father, okay?”

“Why?” she asked, looking back to her mom from Jade.

“He just doesn’t need to know, honey,” their mom told her.

“Well… okay, but dad and Charlie are supposed to be coming back with dinner already. So maybe she shouldn’t be wearing that if it’s a secret from dad?” Elle pointed with a matter of fact tone.

“I gotta call my boss anyway. Thanks, mom,” Jade said before sighing in defeat and making her way back to her room. Once inside, Jade struggled with the neck clasp again before sliding out of the dress. After, she spent a few minutes trying to carefully fold it back into the tissue paper before putting it back into the shopping bag.

She didn’t bother with redressing and instead grabbed her cell phone from the charger and laid on her back on her messy bed as she flipped her phone open. She moved through the menus to send a text to Nacho, staring at her small screen after.

To: Cheesy Chips  
Text: 1/1  
hey can i call you 

Surprisingly, he responded about a minute later, but not with a text. Jade blinked at the pop-up reading “Incoming Call From: Cheesy Chips” before answering with a quick, “Hey.”

“You know how phones work, right?” he asked her flat out, and Jade frowned.

"What?”

“Never mind. What’s up? Are you okay?”

“Um,” Jade started, suddenly feeling nervous. “So like, Friday, right? Tomorrow?”

“…What about tomorrow?” Nacho prompted her.

“I, uh, have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning,” she told him. Her voice grew quieter as she stared up at her popcorn ceiling, wondering what type of reaction he’d have.

“Okay.”

“Wait, what?” she asked quickly, sitting up on her bed. Of all reactions, she thought he’d have, “okay” wasn’t even a possibility.

“Okay, like that’s fine,” Nacho reiterated, and Jade wondered if maybe she wasn’t clear enough.

“No, like, the appointment is at ten tomorrow morning or something. It’s during work.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Nacho reassured her.

“Like, I’m going to miss work. Because I have to go to the doctor,” Jade explained a third time.

“Jade,” he sighed. “I understand. You’re not coming to work tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay…” her voice went quiet again, and she laid back down. “I thought you’d be mad or something.”

He actually laughed at her, “You think I’m that big of a jerk that I’d get mad at you for a doctor appointment?”

“Well, no, but I expected some push back from you, at least. You’re not even gonna ask why?”

“Jade,” she heard him take a deep breath before continuing in a serious tone. “I’m legally not allowed to ask you why.”

It was Jade’s turn to laugh, and she had to bring the phone away from her head briefly to calm down. “When have you ever not done something because it’s illegal?”

“When have you ever seen me do anything illegal when dealing with my father’s shop?” Nacho countered but didn’t sound as amused as she did.

“Okay, fair, I guess,” she said while still smiling.

“Can I ask if you’re okay at least?” he asked her, and Jade’s smile only grew.

“Well, not really. Like, there was a freak accident, and this chimpanzee had a chainsaw, and there was a lot of blood, so…” she managed to say without laughing again.

“Okay, new question. Why are you not in an ambulance right now?” Nacho asked her jokingly, and Jade finally allowed herself to laugh.

“I’m kidding. Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just stupid doctor shit,” she told him honestly this time.

“Okay. Don’t forget to get a note, so my father doesn’t drive me up a wall about it after the fact.”

“A note?” Jade asked, suddenly nervous. She was ninety-nine percent sure that a note from a gynecologist would state precisely that; she had missed work because she had been to a gynecologist.

“Are you really going to a doctor?” Nacho asked, suddenly sounding suspicious.

“Yeah, I am. I’ll get a note for you—or your dad,” Jade told him quickly. She wasn’t sure which would be worse, Nacho or Papa reading her excuse note. Hell, they’d probably both read it. Internally Jade groaned, wondering if she could make her mom cancel the appointment if she sucked up and bought herself some condoms. She probably couldn’t get away with saying Nacho already had condoms without sounding like she had already slept with him.

“Thank you—” Nacho started, but her attention was drawn away from him by a loud banging on her bedroom door.

“Hold on,” she said quickly before dropping her phone on her bed. “What?!”

“Dinner’s here, dad says come and eat!” she heard her brother’s voice through her door.

“Gimme a sec, I’m busy!” she yelled back at Charlie through the door.

“Dad says now!” he told her, “I’m gonna come in!”

“Don’t, I’m not dressed!” she yelled back before grabbing for her bedsheets in case he didn’t believe her.

Instead, she heard him shout back down the hall, “She says she’s naked. You get her out here!”

Jade waited another moment before picking her cell phone back up. “Hey, sorry. I’m expected for dinner, so I gotta go.”

“Do you have time to answer another question?” Nacho asked, sounding like he was trying not to laugh at her.

“Sure,” she sat up a bit straighter on her bed.

“I’m trying to figure out a way to ask without sounding dumb,” he told her, and she could tell he was smiling. “What are you wearing?”

“Oh my god, did you hear that?” she asked, falling back so that she was again lying on her bed.

“You were pretty loud,” he laughed at her, “Yeah, I heard that.”

“Well,” she took a deep breath in, deciding to try and be bold. “I guess that depends. Where are you right now? Are you around a bunch of people?”

“Thank god I’m not, I’m at my place.”

“Oh, you’re alone at your place?” Jade asked, looking over to her alarm clock. She realized it was after eight in the evening.

“Was about to call it a night,” he answered her in short.

“Old man,” Jade laughed at him. “Too bad. I’m gonna have to lie and say I’m fully dressed then,” she told Nacho, trying to sound bored.

“You’re going to lie and say you’re dressed?” Nacho reiterated, catching on to what she meant.

“Yep,” she popped the “p” at the end of the single word. “No point in telling you that I’m only wearing panties.” Jade tried to keep up her facade but couldn’t help but cringe at the word “panties” that just left her mouth. She could have just said underwear, why’d she go with panties?

“I’m listening,” Nacho responded, surprising her.

“I—” she laughed nervously, cutting herself off. “I just said there’s no point in telling you about them,” she got out of her bed then, playing with the elastic waistband of the current topic of their conversation. “I mean, they’re nothing special,” Jade added with a sudden burst of confidence (or adrenaline, or stupidity, or a combination of all three). “I could take them off, and there’d probably be more to talk about.”

“Are we doing this right now?” she heard Nacho ask on the other end of the line. It wasn’t an uninterested or even upset tone he used. Instead, it was probably the closest she’d ever heard Nacho, the man who was either utterly calm or slightly annoyed, get to excited.

“Diana!” her father’s voice sounded from the other side of her bedroom door, making her literally jump.

“Jesus, what?!” she yelled back, dropping her phone to her side.

“I just got back with your brother from a pizza-pocalypse. Don’t make that journey done for you in vain,” her dad told her, speaking as if he were serious.

“Are you kidding me? Dad, I’m busy!” Jade yelled back before bringing her phone back to her ear. “Sorry Nacho, I gotta eat pizza.”

“That’s okay—”

“Are you talking on the phone? Who are you talking to naked on the phone?” her father asked, immediately and truly serious.

“I was changing, and Tammy called me, and I got distracted!” Jade called back. “I’m sorry, I gotta go, bye,” she said quickly into her cell phone before ending the call and grabbing her clothes off her messy bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Morena is back, and Corey has a new girlfriend, so that's cool. I'm sure that's all good and not gonna explode in Jade's face at all 😇 Seriously, though, my boyfriend told me this whole chapter was a powder keg, and maybe he's onto something? I guess we'll all have to find out while I continue to update this weekly in July (sorry its 7 am, and I haven't had coffee or breakfast, so my segues are fucking weird 😅). So yeah, I've got three of the four chapters written out for July, and I'm working on that fourth chapter this weekend, so hopefully, I'll finish it in time for Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal for Camp is finishing the five chapters I'd need for August so I can keep up with weekly posts. I'm probably gonna have to take a break _somewhere_ , but that's for future me to worry about. I also need to get in gear and catch up to this story in Nacho's POV over in Hard to Be a God because we're missing out on a lot of Nacho shenanigans that Jade doesn't know about. Unreliable narrator is unreliable. 
> 
> Anyway! Jade and Nacho's date is coming up in the next chapter, and it's on the longer side (11k+). Who's excited? I know I am, it took me nearly a full year of posting and almost 200k words to get this far. Thank you all for sticking with this. I know I still have a few pairs of OG reader eyes on this ❤ , And thanks to all the newbies also! I hope you stick around for this rollercoaster we're about to get on 🤍 Lastly thanks to my boyfriend for beta reading, even if the second scene was too girly for him 😋


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